The Wyrmling Horde r-7

by David Farland

  The gale was gaining in intensity, and now the trees shuddered under the impact of blasts of wind, their leaves hissing and branches swaying.

  Talon raced at Rhianna s side, glanced back at the darkening sky. "If they get too close, take Fallion and go."

  Rhianna shot back, "Run fast enough, and they won t get too close."

  The company charged south a few more miles and entered a familiar town, barren and broken.

  With a start, Talon cried, "The girl! We must get her."

  The emir had nearly forgotten about the child. He peered about blindly, searching the rubble for a sign of the child. He didn t have Talon s many endowments of sight and smell.

  Talon raced ahead, veered to the right and dodged into a ruined hovel. She came out with the girl in her arms, the child clinging to her as if Talon was her long lost mother. The little girl was weeping in relief.

  In moments, Talon set her in the bed of the wagon, throwing her own tunic over the child as a shield against the night.

  What have we saved? the emir wondered, peering over his shoulder at the advancing storm. The Darkling Glories will have us all.

  Over hills and through fields they went now, running for what seemed hour after hour, though the moon on the horizon and the stars in the sky moved hardly at all.

  The Darkling Glories filled the heavens. The emir imagined that with his endowments, he was running sixty miles per hour. But even on the wing the Darkling Glories could not keep pace. They were falling behind.

  Forty or fifty miles per hour, he realized. That is all they are doing. The creatures were flying slowly, searching the ground methodically.

  After what seemed to be a run of six hours, they came upon the site of Rhianna s slaughter the day before, and chased off a few wolves they found feasting upon wyrmling carcasses.

  "I ll get the forcibles," Rhianna said. "Stay here."

  She leapt into the air and sped off, winging to the west. In moments she was lost from sight as she sped just above the treetops.

  Every eye in the group kept peering back to the north, toward the flashes of lightning that flickered beneath the starry sky. The company had pulled ahead of the Darkling Glories. But soon the emir knew that the heroes would have to veer east, and then the Darkling Glories would gain on them.

  Talon paced about near the handcart watching over the child, who had Fallen asleep. Talon looked like a nervous wreck.

  She has never been tested in battle, the emir realized. If she were one of my men, I would go whisper words of encouragement.

  He went to her, took her hand. Talon stopped pacing, and her eyes riveted on his.

  "The girl is safe now," the emir said. "I think she has not slept in days. We ll be all right. Your friend Rhianna will be back soon. She knows how much is resting upon her."

  Talon didn t answer. Instead she threw her arms around him, hugged long and hard.

  "This war isn t over, is it?" she said. "It s hardly begun."

  "No," he said, unsure what she was getting at. "It isn t over."

  "You can t give back your endowments. Your people need you. You re as trapped as Fallion is."

  Then he understood what she was saying. She was rejoicing that he was alive, that he would be forced to stay alive for a while longer.

  She kissed him, and he held her and kissed her in return. He felt guilty for taking his daughter s endowment, for being forced to keep it. He felt lucky to be alive and to have won Talon s love.

  They broke apart for a moment, and the emir caught Fallion watching them.

  What does the boy think of me? he wondered. I am an old man, holding and kissing his little sister.

  But there was no disapproval in Fallion s eyes, only pain from the torments he suffered. Fallion flashed him a small smile, as if in gratitude.

  He spoke something in his own tongue. The emir s few lessons in Rofehavanish were not enough to let him translate.

  Talon translated for him, "He said to me, I have often wondered if there would ever be a man in the world worthy of you. At last you have found love, Little Sister. Congratulations."

  The lightning drew closer, and the mass of darkness beneath the stars was growing uncomfortably close by the time that Rhianna returned, lugging the forcibles-four chests, small but heavy. She had to flap her wings furiously, and sweat was coursing down her face when she landed. She gently laid the forcibles into the back of the handcart.

  With the Darkling Glories looming near, there was no time to waste.

  The company headed south for another fifteen miles, then Rhianna turned onto an older trail that climbed into the hills, a road that had been built by the folk of Caer Luciare ages ago, and most likely would lead into ruins.

  "Are you certain this road goes where we need it to?" Talon asked.

  "Yes," Rhianna replied. "I saw it from the air."

  So they raced up into the mountains, heading due east for fifteen miles. The Darkling Glories were rushing southward like a storm front, growing ever closer.

  But as the company ran east, it became obvious that the vast majority of the Darkling Glories were heading south, following the road.

  From the peak of a hill, the companions were able to peer east and see the murder of Darkling Glories now drawing even to their course. There were two or three hundred of the creatures following the highway.

  Suddenly the whole flock came to a halt and began diving to the ground, as if to attack something unseen.

  "What are they after?" Daylan wondered. "The horse-sisters?"

  The emir wondered.

  "No," Talon said hopefully, thinking aloud. "We warned them to hide well by night. There must be some other threat abroad in the land."

  Rhianna grinned wickedly. Horns began to sound, bursts long and deep of throat. "Warlord Bairn, from the Courts of Tide, those are, his horns. I told him that a mountain of blood-metal was on the road north of here. He must have come looking for it. Too bad for him. If hadn t tried to kill me, perhaps he would not have met such a miserable end."

  The heroes turned their attention elsewhere.

  Farther to the north, spanning in every direction, were smaller storms where single Darkling Glories searched. Time and again, the emir could see them dipping to the ground or rising up, like fireflies among the bushes.

  They re hunting, he realized, dropping down to check out every empty farm cottage, every pile of stone ruins.

  Daylan pointed to the front, to the murder. "They re going to Caer Luciare!"

  "To get blood metal," the emir said with conviction. "Despair will have thousands of pounds of it before dawn."

  The emir s heart thrilled with battle hunger. He felt the urge to fight back, and glanced at the others.

  "Maybe I can stop them," Rhianna said. "I can outfly them. I m faster."

  "Can you outfly the lightning bolts that they ll rain down upon you?" Daylan asked. "Don t even try."

  "We can t let Despair get those forcibles," Rhianna said.

  "We can t stop him," Daylan said. "Let it go. Let it go."

  Rhianna peered to the south, toward Caer Luciare. "Look," she said, "here come the Knights Eternal!"

  The emir peered hard, but could see nothing. He didn t have the endowments of sight to match Rhianna s.

  "Where?" he asked.

  "There, about thirty, maybe forty miles to the south."

  He squinted, but in the starlight could see nothing but hills and forests and barren patches of grass on the treeless plain.

  "Well, at least we know now why Vulgnash has not been on our trail," Daylan said. "Most likely, he was fetching more blood metal for his master."

  Luck, the emir thought. It is only by luck that we are still alive.

  "Vulgnash flies swiftly," Rhianna said. "In half an hour, he ll reach Rugassa. Ten minutes after that, he ll be on our trail."

  The emir calculated. The Darkling Glories had to stop to search every nook and cranny where the company might hide, and so they did not present an im
minent threat. But Vulgnash had mastered arcane spells known only to the Knights Eternal. He would find them, eventually.

  Our only choice may be to flee this world forever, the emir thought.

  With that, the company dropped from the crown of the hill, down into the shelter of the deep woods, and raced for a time quickly, peering over their backs again and again.

  In a few minutes they were out of the trees and onto a starlit plain. The road here was nonexistent. Grasses had grown over it, tall and golden.

  The bent grass will give away our trail, the emir realized. It will make a road for the enemy to follow.

  The others saw it too. "Quickly now!" Talon shouted. "There is no time to waste!"

  Twenty-seven minutes later, Vulgnash reached Rugassa and met Lord Despair upon the parapet outside of his room. Vulgnash landed and dropped a chest of forcibles at his master s feet.

  Despair smiled grimly. "Vulgnash, my friend," he said, "Fallion and his companions have escaped. I want you to retrieve him for me."

  "Escaped?" Vulgnash asked.

  "They will not elude us for long," Despair said. "Fallion Orden is one of my chosen. I know precisely where he is headed-toward Castle Coorm, and the One True Tree."

  "He shall find no comfort there," Vulgnash said.

  "No, he won t," Despair answered. "He will find you there. I m sending a great graak with you, with guards to bind and secure the prisoners. You will return them to me… so that they may be properly punished."

  25

  THE STRUGGLE CEASES

  It seemed to Rhianna that she had been running for days when they neared Castle Coorm. Darkness still enveloped the world. With twenty endowments of metabolism, she knew that the darkness would stretch on endlessly. Ten hours of darkness would seem like two hundred, and she would suffer beneath the pall.

  Then the sun would come out, and every day would feel like an endless summer.

  But she feared that Fallion would never see a summer again. He was growing worse by the minute. He lay in the back of the wagon, his face blanched with pain. Sometimes when Rhianna glanced in, she saw him staring up at some private horror.

  There is no escape for him, she thought.

  They were sprinting across the grasslands, heading toward a line of trees, when they met the Wizard Sisel and Lord Erringale. It was as if the two appeared out of nowhere. Rhianna had a dozen endowments of sight, and should have seen them miles away, but the wizard and his charge seemed to spring up from the oat stubble magically, not twenty yards in front of them.

  "Halt!" Sisel cried, smiling in greeting. Rhianna realized that he had been using his protective magic to hide himself as he moved. In the distance to the north and west, lightning flashed, though the stars overhead shone brightly and there was not a sign of clouds. She realized that the Darkling Glories had found their trail over the plains. "There is no need to go to the tree," the wizard said mournfully. "The enemy has struck it down."

  The wizard s words seemed painfully slow. Rhianna s thoughts raced so quickly, she could hardly stand to wait for him to speak.

  "Let us leave this world then," Daylan Hammer said, "for there are Darkling Glories on our trail-or worse."

  Rhianna could see the "or worse." Miles and miles away, on the horizon, a dark knot winged toward them. An enormous graak, its elongated body looking like a black worm, undulated through the sky. Pale riders sat upon its back, no less than a dozen of them-wyrmling warriors in their armor of bone.

  To either side of the graak, a pair of fliers came, crimson wings flashing in the pale moonlight, hurtling above and around the slower graak, like starlings harrying some ponderous owl.

  Rhianna jutted her chin. "Vulgnash is coming. I see him, miles away. He s heading straight toward us." She hesitated. "He s flying fast. He has taken endowments."

  "I don t understand," Fallon said. "How can he take them? Endowments are gifts from the living to the living."

  The Wizard Sisel said, "Life and death are a matter of degree. A man who is dying can be less than half alive. Vulgnash is not a living creature like you and me. It is said that he has no soul-yet I am forced to wonder… He animates a body, emulates life. To me this indicates that he does have a soul, a powerful and gifted soul."

  "It sounds to me as if there is a contradiction here," the emir said, "fit to baffle a wizard."

  "At the very least," Sisel said, "he does have a body, unlike the wights that he serves, and so our Vulgnash can take endowments…"

  A sudden light filled Sisel s eyes, as if some insight filled his mind, but rather than voice it, he held silent, and pondered.

  Talon looked stricken. She peered north, and said, "So soon? How does he know where to look?"

  The others only stared blankly, but Rhianna s thoughts spun ahead. "If he were following our trail, he should be coming from behind us. He knows exactly where to look." She turned to Fallion. There was no accusation in her voice, only regret. "Lord Despair has chosen you," she told Fallion. "That s the only explanation. I don t believe that Vulgnash is coming this way out of dumb luck."

  Fallion looked crestfallen.

  "Is that true?" Sisel asked. "Did he choose you?"

  Fallion looked around blankly, his face lined with pain. "I, I don t know. I was unconscious much of the time. I sometimes woke to pain and torture, and I recall seeing Despair standing over me, grinning down at me. But I don t remember him choosing me. I don t recall anything at all. But…"

  "What?" Rhianna asked gently.

  "A while ago I heard a voice," he said, "Despair s voice-or thought that I did." Fallion looked to the ground. "I thought I was just hearing things: it was a warning. I was told not to fight. I was told that if I surrendered, Despair would not take vengeance upon you."

  Now there was no doubt in Rhianna s mind that Fallion had been chosen. If I were Lord Despair and I wanted to keep track of a prisoner, I would choose him, she thought. Then Fallion could not escape, could not take his own life, without me being warned.

  Daylan turned to Lord Erringale. "Milord," he said humbly, "I beg your help." He then explained all that was happening-how the Darkling Glories had come to this world, the danger that Fallion was in, and the greater danger that he posed. "We need sanctuary. I ask that you grant it for a little while, upon your world, if you can."

  Erringale frowned and looked to the ground. In the distance, there was a rumbling and flash of light to the east.

  "You propose to hide Fallion upon my world?" Erringale asked.

  "Yes," Daylan answered.

  "Won t this false Earth King be able to find him?" Erringale asked. "How do we know that Fallion won t bring danger to all that love him?"

  "It is a chance that we must take," Daylan said.

  "No!" Fallion said vehemently. "I can t go with you, Daylan. Too many of my people would be made to suffer for my sake."

  "Then what do you want to do?" Rhianna asked. Fallion was the one in pain. She wanted to save him. She would do anything that he asked.

  "Send me back," he said. "I won t put my friends in jeopardy."

  "You can t go back," the emir said. "Despair will continue to torture you. Just when you think that it could get no worse, it will. No one can bear such torment forever. In time, Despair will either drive you mad, or win you and make you his tool."

  Fallion shook his head. "Having seen Despair, how could I ever consent to become like him?" He looked to Lord Erringale. "You were there: you know how Despair was formed. The more that Yaleen felt others pain, the more she hated them. But I m different. The more I feel their pain, the more I care for them."

  For once, Talon s thoughts outraced Rhianna s. "Fallion, if you return to Despair," Talon said, "all that you have hoped for will be lost. You will never be able to bind the worlds into one."

  Fallion considered his response thoughtfully. His face was filled with pain and anguish. Despair almost had him. "How can I hope to bind the worlds now," he begged, "after seeing what horrors I have wrou
ght?"

  Perhaps I should kill him, Rhianna thought. Despair has already won. I could put him out of his misery.

  And if I do, she realized, what will happen to Fallion s Dedicates?

  The pains that he now bears will return to them in full-the horror of their mutilations, their grief and terror.

  Fallion knows that. He stands between them and their pain. He can t give it back to them.

  No true man would, she thought. For then Despair, in his fury and petulance, would subject them to unspeakable horrors.

  Rhianna considered the arguments, and she knew that she could not kill Fallion anyway, even to save him from his torment. She was a strong woman, but she didn t have that kind of strength.

  "There may be a way," Erringale suggested to the group, hope rising in his voice, "to turn the tables on Lord Despair-if we dare try it!"

  Erringale looked to Fallion. "To resist evil, we almost never need to resort to bloodshed. Let me ask, could you teach another how to bind the worlds?"

  "Perhaps," Fallion said uncertainly. "It would be hard, but I could try. It would have to be a flameweaver of great power, but in time, yes, I think I could teach someone."

  Erringale s eyes shifted, focused upon the emir. "There is a flameweaver among us, one who has come to help you. Upon your world, his shadow was the greatest flameweaver your kind has ever known, but upon his world he has shunned such power. Fallion, I would like you to meet the shadow of Raj Ahten."

  Fallion peered up at the emir, and his eyes went wide.

  Rhianna knew what he was thinking. There was distrust written plainly upon Fallion s face.

  "He s a good man," Talon said. "He s nothing like the Raj Ahten that our fathers slew. He s risked his life for his people time and time again, proven himself over and over. If there is anyone you can trust with your secret, it is Tuul Ra."

  Fallion shook his head, unconvinced. But he had little in the way of choices.

  "The enemy will be here soon," Lord Erringale said. "We must be prepared to meet them. Come with me, Fallion, Tuul Ra. Let us prepare." Lord Erringale nodded toward the hill nearby, covered with oaks and elms.