The Wyrmling Horde

by David Farland

  Bright Ones, Talon realized. These were perfect men.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  He isn’t forty or fifty or even sixty, Talon thought. He is millions of years old.

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

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

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

  “I bring allies,” Daylan said, “in the fight against our common foe.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Even Daylan Hammer seemed astonished by this news.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  7

  * * *

  SISTERS

  A great leader commands through fear, but at times you may find that it is best to cooperate with others as equals. It is the job of the statesman to inspire greed in others, so that two parties share a common hope for reward.

  —From the Wyrmling Catechism

  An arrow whisked past Rhianna’s neck with a stinging sound. From the horse-sisters’ camp down below came cries of alarm, followed by the bleat of a war horn. The horse sisters’ silken pavilions glowed like gems in the early evening, each lit from inside by bright lanterns, each a different hue—ruby, emerald, sapphire, diamond, and tourmaline.

  Warriors boiled from the pavilions, pointi
ng up at Rhianna in the air, and many grabbed their steel war bows, short and broad of wing, and began to let arrows fly.

  Some raced to the campfires, lighting arrows and then sending them aloft so that the archers might better see their target. One went soaring just beneath Rhianna.

  I’d hoped for a warm welcome, she thought, but not that warm.

  Other women ran to care for the horses, which were tied outside of camp.

  Rhianna flapped madly, rising in the air, to get out of archery range. It seemed the horse-sisters loved her as little as the warlords of Internook had.

  The journey from the Courts of Tide had taken nearly all of the evening and part of the night, but it turned out to be easier than Rhianna had imagined. During the day, she had been fighting a slight headwind. But tonight she had a strong following wind, and warm thermals had flowed up from the ground, keeping her aloft. More important, though, she had been driven by great need, and so had denied herself any rest. Thus she had made four hundred miles in only eight hours.

  “Sisters,” Rhianna cried. “I come in the name of Clan Connal, and I come in peace!”

  Perhaps she was too high above them. Perhaps none heard. They certainly could not see her well in the darkness, and the din of war horns and the cries of alarm only grew louder.

  Rhianna wheeled above the horses the sisters had, and noticed something strange—hundreds of red blood mounts, a strain of horse bred for its powerful night vision. They were common in Inkarra, but when Rhianna had lived here as a child, they’d been so rare that they were almost a myth.

  Added to that was another mystery—these horse-sisters were far from home, hundreds of miles east of where they should have been.

  Reaching into a pouch at her belt, she grabbed a single forcible, and flapped higher into the air, well out of bow range.

  When Rhianna was soaring just above their campfires, she let the forcible drop.

  The magical branding iron was not a heavy thing—less than an ounce in weight—and it would probably not hurt someone if it hit them. Her greatest concern was that they would not see it.

  The forcible landed in the dirt, and in the darkness Rhianna could not see where it had fallen, but one of the horse-sisters must have heard, for a bow-woman reached down, picked it up, and began to shout excitedly, “Hold your fire! Hold!”

  It took a moment for the sisters to calm themselves, and Rhianna merely circled patiently as the camp quieted. “I come in the name of Clan Connal,” she cried. “I come in peace. I have forcibles to trade, if you want them.”

  The women raised a cheer, and dozens of them backed away from the fire, giving her a clear landing site.

  Rhianna plummeted from the sky, and then beat her wings hastily as she neared ground. She felt thankful that in the end, her landing was not as clumsy as most.

  The horse-sisters peered at her in wonder. “I was born to Clan Connal,” Rhianna said. “I am Rhianna Connal, daughter of Erin.”

  The leader of the horse-sisters stepped forward, a woman in lacquered leather mail, with a small round ornate helm, crusted with precious stones along the brim. Her long red hair flowed loose at the back, and she bore a red lance—the symbol of her ascendancy in the clan.

  “I knew a Rhianna Connal as a child,” she said suspiciously. “But she did not have wings.”

  Rhianna wondered how to explain her wings. If the horse-sisters knew that they were a magical artifact, that they could be removed only after Rhianna’s death, it might invite someone to hasten her demise. But these were horse-sisters, not some brutish warlords from Internook.

  “Much has changed with the binding of the worlds,” Rhianna said, offering the first evasion that came to mind.

  There were grunts of assent from the women. “Yes,” their leader said. “Our lands were once vast plains fit only for horses. Now shaggy elephants range here in great herds, and the grass is going bad. There is a blight upon the land. There are mountains and canyons where there should be none, and there are giants in the land. Do you know the cause of these things?”

  Rhianna nodded. “The Earth King’s son, Fallion Orden, is a flameweaver of great power. He tried to bind the worlds into one, to create a better one. But you see the results.

  “I’ve come to bring you warning. The world has changed. There is a great evil to the east, wyrmling warriors, giants with pale white skin. They pose a threat unlike any that the world has known.”

  The women muttered, and many of them looked as if they would run to their horses, prepare for battle.

  “We have already met their like,” one of the horse-sisters said.

  “But not all of my news is ill,” Rhianna said. “There is blood metal in this new land, enough to make the horse-sisters of Fleeds the mightiest nation on Earth!”

  The horse-sisters cheered, and Rhianna saw toddlers at the edge of the tents leaping for joy, though they did not understand the cause of the celebration. She knew from that alone that she had them.

  The generosity of the horse-sisters exceeded anything that Rhianna could have imagined.

  She had hoped for a decent meal. Instead they brought her a feast of sweet lamb, delicately spiced and cooked on skewers, followed by summer melons, hearty brown bread, and a pudding made from horse milk, sweetened with honey and cumin.

  She had hoped for a trough to wash in. The horse-sisters brought her warmed rose water, and young women made a game of bathing her.

  She had hoped for a piece of safe ground to lie on. They offered her silken pillows in their tent.

  Well had Thull-turock spoken when he had told Rhianna that though Fallion Orden had no friends in the world, “You should be able to buy the friends you want with those forcibles.”

  It was nearly dawn when the feasting was done and the festivities finished. Many of the clan had gone to bed, but others lingered beside the campfire as Rhianna told her tale—beginning with her birth, her mother’s flight from the dungeons of Crowthen, and Rhianna’s betrayal and capture by her father. She told of her flight beyond the Ends of the Earth in order to escape the assassins that hounded Fallion, and she told of his return to Mystarria, the binding of the worlds, and his battle with the wyrmlings and his capture by the Knights Eternal.

  To Rhianna her own tale sounded like something from an ancient fable, not the life that she had lived. But she had her proofs—the wings that she wore, the scar from the forcible when she was forced to give an endowment of wit to a sea ape.

  Clan Connal was well known here. Erin’s grandmother had been a queen, and though the horse-sisters formed a matriarchal society, their royal station was not inherited. Instead a leader was chosen every generation based upon merit alone. So though Erin had no special rights as an heir, her lineage was held in high esteem.

  The current leader, Sister Daughtry, listened to Rhianna’s wild tale, ending at last with her quest to raise aid from the warlords of Internook, beastly and ravenous men who would not stir themselves to save the Earth King’s heir. So Rhianna had come home.

  “You chose wisely,” Sister Daughtry said at last. “The warlords of Internook have the hearts of swine—more than most men. They are not to be trusted.” She glanced patronizingly toward her own lover, a tall man in fine livery who stood guard just outside the fire.

  “Some men can be trusted,” Rhianna countered. “The Earth King could be trusted, as can his son Fallion.”

  “The Earth King was more than a man,” Sister Daughtry said. “He was a force of nature—as steady and reliable as the sun, rounding in its course.” She looked penetratingly at Rhianna. “You love this Fallion Orden, don’t you?”

  “More than I can say. More than you will ever know.”

  “Love him then,” Sister Daughtry warned, “but do not trust him completely. He is a man, like all others, subject to an inborn urge for conquest and domination, but with too little in the way of wisdom or compassion.”

  “Men are not alone in having a grasping nature,” Rhianna argued gently.r />
  “Still,” Sister Daughtry countered, “your Fallion may have good intentions, but look at the harm he has wrought.”

  Rhianna could not help but notice how she referred to Fallion as your Fallion, as if Rhianna had already put a bridle on him, claiming him as her own.

  If only life were so easy, she thought. But Fallion was not from the horse clans. He would not have accepted such a gesture on her part, and she doubted that she would ever share his love. He was a noble, and thus would save himself for a royal match with a woman of similar birth. He had made that clear to her before. No matter what his feelings for her, too much was at stake.

  Sister Daughtry reached down to the fire where a pot of warm water was brewing, and poured some into a clay mug. A serving man stepped forward and dropped in a twisted brown vanilla bean and a couple of leaves rolled into a pearl. Sister Daughtry gave the goblet to Rhianna, and she held it for a moment, letting the flavors mix. It seemed a lifetime ago since she had tasted plains tea.

  Overhead a sea of stars drifted among gauzy clouds. The moon was in full retreat tonight, and did not favor them with even the smallest sickle. Out on the prairie, a hunting cat roared, and at the pickets, some horses nickered in fear.

  “You have blood mounts in your herd,” Rhianna said, still surprised at this strange turn.

  “The Earth King warned us to bring them into our herds a decade ago, even as he died. He warned the folk of Carris to flee, too, and for a decade we have wondered why. Now, with the great change, the reavers have emerged from the Underworld again. Our scouts say that a host of them is heading north.”

  “Reavers?” Rhianna said. It was a word that struck dread in her heart. She reasoned, “With the earthquakes and shifts in landscape, it only makes sense that the reavers would be riled.”