She saw High King Urstone leap into the air, angrily brandishing an ax, hot on the tail of the Knight Eternal that had struck down Sisel. Urstone’s flying skills were no match for those of his immortal enemy. He flapped clumsily, straining to catch up.
Seeing that the race was lost, King Urstone suddenly swooped and dove back among the troops in the market. He grasped the fallen wizard and flapped his wings in a frenzy, lugging Sisel into the air, well above the crowd, making for an open door high up on the mountain.
The defenders that had stood over the fallen wizard raised a cheer as he was carried to safety. But the cheer turned to cries of dismay as the wyrmlings charged into their midst.
In astonishment, Rhianna gaped at the battle raging below, a few thousand human warriors pitted against the might of the wyrmling horde. The wyrmlings were led by harvesters, boosted with extracts from the glands of fallen enemies. They raced through warrior clan’s troops, chopping men down as if they were saplings.
In moments the battle would be over.
Rhianna realized, We are all as good as dead.
AT THE BRINK OF RUIN
It is when a man is confronted with eminent ruin that despair grows within him. And when overwhelmed by despair, he becomes pliant, and can be made a tool to fit your hand.
— Emperor Zul-torac
Through the streets of Luciare, the Death Lord rode atop a walking hill, surrounded by his wyrmling captains. The great hill was the product of some strange world that he had never seen. Its back was armored with chitin, like a giant snail. It had thousands of strange tendrils hanging from its front, each like an elephant’s trunk, and with these it harvested anything in its path-grass, trees, or wyrmlings, and shoved them up into one of its maws as it continued to trundle forward upon thousands of marching feet.
The walking hills were supposed to act as archers’ towers, to help the wyrmlings breach the castle walls, but the walking hills would not be needed on this trip.
Up ahead, the wyrmling troops were slaughtering the last of the human defenders, who had found themselves trapped between the upper and lower walls.
Streets that once had been teeming with life now were filled with the dying and the dead.
The Death Lord reached out his hand and pulled the life from those human defenders who still gripped it so tenaciously, and then sent it to his own troops, lending them greater vigor, making them drunk on bloodlust.
“Take off their heads!” the Death Lord cried. “There are still wounded among our enemy, and some feign death. Turn their lies into truth. Leave their glands for the harvesters!”
His troops raced through the small shops and houses, engaging any defenders that tried to hide. There were occasional shouts as a human was found alive and offered a last desperate battle.
His walking hill climbed the streets to the upper gate, but there could go no farther. The upper wall was too steep for the creature to climb.
The last of the human warriors were being slaughtered as his hill came to a halt, and now the guards began to raise the upper gate.
The Death Lord took a great leap, and went fluttering from the hill to the wall, a jump of some twenty yards. It was no great feat for the Death Lord. He was mostly spirit now, and only the weight of his robes dragged him earthward.
Here in the courtyard he halted at the gates to the warrens. A few pitiful humans guarded the warrens still. They had closed the huge iron battle doors in one last attempt to fend off death.
But I have come for them anyway, the Death Lord thought. I will take them this night, ridding the world of the warrior clans.
The lights of Luciare still burned blindingly bright to the Death Lord, there in the braziers to each side of the iron doors. The spirits were dancing, flickering emerald and blinding white, then dying down to dazzling blue.
The Death Lord could not kill such creatures, for their lives had been taken. But even spirits had enemies.
The Death Lord stretched forth his mind, sent it into the shadows, and summoned an army of wyrms.
The dark creatures came by the hundreds, flying as if in a mad and tangled flock, descending upon the lights of Luciare.
In an instant, the lights were snuffed out.
The wyrmlings cheered as they raced up from the lower quarters to take the warrens.
In the sudden darkness, Rhianna crept on hands and knees to the fallen knight, hoping to pull his wings free. There were no lights from Luciare, none from fires or torches below. She knew that the night vision of the wyrmlings was legendary, but she had to hope that for a few moments, at least, that the wyrmling horde would be distracted. And she had to hope, for a few moments, that Fallion’s blood-flow had been staunched. If I can only reach those wings, Rhianna thought, I can grab Fallion and carry him to safety.
“Dying is easy,” Warlord Madoc shouted to his troops inside the warren. “Anyone can do it.”
He grinned. He wasn’t accustomed to giving speeches and did not account himself a fancy talker. Now he was getting the use of the same speech twice in one night. The troops crowded the tunnel. Archers with great bows would form the front ranks, taking out the first wyrmlings who managed to batter down the door. Daylan Hammer would be the champion guarding this corridor. In a strange twist of fate, the man who Warlord Madoc had hoped to kill was now entrusted with saving them all. The Cormar twins were in charge of championing the other two entrances.
“A child can die in the night from nothing at all,” Warlord Madoc said. “Dying is easy. It is staying alive on a night like this that will be hard.”
There were grunts of “Well put!” and “Death to all wyrmlings!” But there were no cheers, no wild applause. The troops were too thoughtful, too scared, and too subdued.
His men huddled behind the great iron war doors that were the last major defense for Caer Luciare. Up near the top of the door were cleverly constructed spy holes. Lookouts there watched the wyrmlings, reported each little defeat as it came-the fall of the Wizard Sisel, the wounding of Fallion. Sobering news all.
“The fate of all our people rests in our hands,” Warlord Madoc said. “It is but an hour till dawn, an hour and a half at the best. We must hold the gates until then. If we can hold them through the night, the wyrmlings will be forced to retreat.”
What would happen next, he could not guess. He imagined that he would gather all that he could and flee into the mountains or head for the settlements of the small folk to the north or west. But it was a daunting task, and he did not believe that they would make it.
“Warlord Madoc,” a woman’s voice called. “King Urstone is still trapped outside.”
It was the Emir’s daughter, Siyaddah. She stood in a shirt of bright ring mail beneath a thumb-lantern. She bore a crescent shield that the folk of Indhara used as a slashing weapon, along with a fine sword.
Damn King Urstone, Madoc wanted to say. Look what he has brought down upon us. I should have killed him years ago.
“I wish that his strong arm was here to fight beside us,” Warlord Madoc said in mock sorrow. “But he has gone to fight other battles, and we must wish him well.”
Suddenly a great boom sounded, blasting from the hollow throat of a thunder drum, and the ground shook beneath their feet.
Madoc heard rock crack, and great slabs of wall that had been hastily repaired only a day ago suddenly broke free, their mortar never having had time to set. Rock came tumbling down outside, crashing from above.
The warrens will be exposed, Madoc knew, tunnels showing up like the burrows of woodworms through a rotting tree. The Knights Eternal will have easy access to the apartments above.
Damn, he swore, all hope draining from him.
The final battle for Caer Luciare had begun.
AN UNHOLY PROPOSITION
Anyone can be convinced to sell their souls, if offered the right coin. Most will gladly part with it for nothing at all.
— Vulgnash
Vomiting from pain, Areth Sul Urstone was dr
agged up an endless flight of stairs to the uppermost chamber of the dark tower at Rugassa.
There, he was thrown to the floor, where he lay on cold marble tiles that had been swept by the wind. The top of the tower was an observatory with a domed roof. Around it, pillars of black marble carved to look like tree trunks and vines held the roof aloft. Between the pillars was nothing, only open air, sweet and cold at this height.
From here, Areth could see the dark forests in the distance, crowded with hoary pines. Closer by the bulk of the great bastion of Rugassa stretched-mile upon mile of stone walls and fortifications, manned by hundreds of thousands of wyrmling troops.
I could throw myself over the edge of the tower, Areth thought. I could put an end to my pain.
But a pair of guards hunkered over him, and Areth’s muscles were so cramped that he could hardly move. He’d never make it to the tower’s edge.
From before one of the dark pillars a shadow separated, a phantom in black robes that floated above the floor. It was the Emperor Zul-torac.
“Do you wonder why I have brought you here?” he said, his voice a whisper so soft, it seemed almost to echo in one’s head, like a thought. “There is a battle raging at Luciare, a battle that is already lost.”
The light was faint. Only starlight from the skies above filtered into the observatory. But Areth had spent long years in the darkness, and he had become well accustomed to it. He spotted a glint, saw the emperor raise a golden tube and aim it into the distance-an ocular. The emperor hissed the name of the glyph upon the instrument, and an image leapt into the room.
Areth could see Luciare there under the starlight, its image unnaturally bright. Thousands of warriors lay in ruin before the upper gate. Their heads were heaped into ghastly piles.
The ancient spirit lights of the city had gone black, and now a wyrmling army stood before Luciare itself. Thunder drums pounded, blasting at the city walls. Sheets of stone tumbled free, revealing the sacred halls of Luciare.
Even as Areth watched, a fast-flying Knight Eternal went winging into the upper levels where the women and children would be hiding.
He goes like a jay, to pluck the chicks from the nest of his enemies, Areth thought.
The ocular carried some sounds from the distant battle, the snarl and boom of the thunder drums. Suddenly, the frightened screams of babes was added to the mix.
Areth turned away, unable to look any longer.
Haven’t they tormented me enough? Areth wondered. How much more do they think I can stand?
“You can save them,” Emperor Zul-torac whispered. “You can save the last seeds of mankind.”
Areth’s mind seemed to do a little flip. The emperor had nearly echoed the words from his dream only an hour before. And now he heard the Earth Spirit begging him once again to save the seeds of mankind.
Had it been a sending? Had he truly been given such a charge?
In all of the history of the world, Areth had never heard of such a thing. He had no reason to believe that the dream was anything but madness.
Suddenly his feet cramped, and he felt as if they’d been placed in a fire. Were they burning one of his Dedicates? Areth could not be sure.
“What?” Areth begged. “What do I have to do?”
“Nothing much,” the emperor said softly. “Lady Despair desires you. You have only to open yourself, allow a wyrm to feed upon your soul.”
My soul, Areth wondered, to save a city?
How often he had dreamed of freeing himself, of slaughtering the emperor and returning to Luciare as a hero. How often he had imagined the cheers and the adulation.
Now, in a twisted way, those dreams could come true.
One soul. One tormented soul was all that it would take.
“You have taken an endowment of touch from a single boy,” Zul-torac said. “I will take a knife, hold him down. When I cut his throat, you will be freed from the source of your pain, and then the wyrm will enter you, and the city will be spared.”
A wave of pain and nausea washed through Prince Areth Urstone, and he peered at the image of Luciare through eyes misted by tears.
DARKNESS FALLS
In darkness men breed and dream. The poets write the songs that fill their hearts with longing.
For this, Lady Despair shall give men eternal darkness.
— Emperor Zul-torac
Dogs can talk, Alun knew. And right now, his hounds told a tale of wyrmlings in the warrens above him.
Alun stood beneath a thumb-lantern in the yellow light, holding the leash to Wanderlust in one hand and the leash to Brute in another. He was supposed to be on lookout, a mere rearguard.
The wyrmlings had not yet even attacked the front gate. Instead, for five minutes now they had been pounding the thunder drums, crumbling the facade that hid some of the tunnels of the warrens, making a dozen entries. Tremendous booms and snarls snaked through the tunnels, accompanied by the sounds of cracking rock. Motes of stone dust floated in the air, and Alun had worried that the whole mountain would collapse.
But now Wanderlust was barking in alarm and peering up the empty tunnel. Her ears were drawn back flush with her leather mask. Her rear legs quivered in anticipation, and her tail was still.
“We’ve got problems,” Alun called to the troops in the cavern. “There are wyrmlings above us!” He strained his senses.
Warlord Madoc was in charge. He glared at Alun. “You certain, lad?”
Distantly, Alun heard a woman’s scream echoing as if out of some nightmare. “Yeah.”
Madoc looked at his troops, shook his head in dismay. He obviously didn’t want to split his forces, for that is precisely what the wyrmlings were after.
“Hold the gate!” he shouted to his men. “Let me see what we’re up against.” He came rushing toward Alun. His sons, Connor and Drewish stared at him in terror, as if afraid that he’d ask them to follow, but he just shook his head no.
Madoc alone would brave the tunnels above, it seemed.
But at the last instant, Siyaddah peeled away and rushed to join him, followed by a pair from the warrior clan, a young man that Alun did not know, and the girl Talon, that he had helped rescue from the Knights Eternal.
“Let’s go,” Alun told the dogs. Wanderlust gave a strong jerk on her leash and went racing up the tunnel into the warrens, barking.
“Quiet!” Madoc shouted at the dogs. “Quiet now.”
Both dogs went silent, for they were well trained. Still, they strained at their leashes, leading the way.
These won’t be common troops up here, Alun realized as he tried to hold the dogs back. No common troops could have climbed the sheer walls of the mountain.
With a pounding heart, he realized that there would be Knights Eternal ahead.
In the darkness, Rhianna reached the corpse of the dead knight and grabbed at his wings. The creature’s skin had gone gray with age and his flesh felt dry and mummified. As she pulled at his wings, his whole body followed. It could not have weighed fifty pounds. Even his bones must have rotted and dried up.
Rhianna’s blow had taken the creature square in the skull, bursting it like an overripe melon. All that was left of its head was a single mandible hanging by a scrap of skin.
Rhianna was afraid to move, afraid to draw attention. She could not see much in the darkness, but wyrmlings were filling the courtyard in front of the warrens, and the snarl and bang of thunder drums filled the night. Stone slabs were sliding down from the mountainside, revealing its secret passageways, and for the moment, that seemed to hold the wyrmlings’ attention. But at any instant, the wyrmlings could come for her.
Grasping the wings with both hands, Rhianna gave the knight’s remains a swift kick, and the wings came free with surprising ease.
She studied the fearful prongs in the powdery starlight, wondering how to insert them, afraid that the obvious answer was the only one.
There was a rush of wings behind her, and Rhianna whirled, afraid that a Knight Ete
rnal had found her.
High King Urstone landed with a grunt.
“Gesht,” the high king whispered, casting a worried look into the sky. The word might have meant hurry, or follow me. Rhianna could not be certain, so she tried to do both.
She grasped the wings, held them over her head.
The high king leapt forward, shoved the metal prongs into her back, hard.
The pain that lanced through her drove a gasp from Rhianna’s lungs.
But the king spared her no sympathy. He raced to Fallion, took one look at him, and picked him up.
“Gesht! Gesht!” he hissed, and King Urstone leapt into the air, his wings flapping madly, trying to lug Fallion up along with his own bulk.
Wait for me, Rhianna thought forlornly. Her wings felt like dead weight on her shoulders, and she had to wipe away tears of pain.
She heard a shout off to her left, saw a trio of wyrmlings charging out of the darkness. Her own staff was at her feet, so she grabbed it and went sprinting along the wall, fleeing the wyrmlings. In a hundred yards, the wall ended.
Rhianna ran, swiped the tears of pain from her face, and tried furiously to flap the wings.
She had only gone fifty yards when she felt a tingling sensation as the wings came alive.
The heavy footfalls of wyrmling warriors closed in behind her, accompanied by the sounds of bone mail clanking.
Rhianna raced, fearing that at any moment a poison war dart would strike her square in the back, the way that one had with Jaz.
She peered upward, saw King Urstone flying high up the mountain toward a parapet.
A wyrmling roared at her back, came racing up with a burst of speed. Rhianna knew that she couldn’t outrun the monster, so she whirled to her right and leapt over the wall.
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