The Wyrmling Horde

by David Farland

  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 pleas ur ably.

  “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. As of yet, he had not glimpsed his foes. 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 t
he 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, a
lmost 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.