The Wyrmling Horde

Rhianna saw that the horse-sisters preparation for the raid on the wyrmlings took precedence over all else that night. They immediately went to work setting all in motion for battle. Because Caer Luciare was far away, the first order of business among the sisters was to feed their horses miln, a rich mixture of grain and molasses, to ready them for the long run.

Then the sisters began to pack, taking only light weapons and armor. That decision alone astonished Rhianna. To fight a wyrmling was an act of courage. To fight one in nothing but a horse-sister s leather jerkin was heroic.

Meanwhile, facilitators, smiths, and jewelers began making forcibles-recasting each metal rod with the proper rune at its tip, and then filing and hammering the soft blood metal into shape.

Once each forcible was deemed usable, the facilitators could transfer endowments from one horse to another-giving each horse two endowments of metabolism, one of brawn, and one of stamina.

The smiths worked fast, far faster than the men of Caer Luciare had been able to. In part they sped along because they knew how to make forcibles. It was an ancient art here. In part they worked quickly because the women s small hands and nimble fingers found it easier to do the work. In part they flew through the work because the master craftsmen each first took endowments of metabolism. Thus, they hoped to accomplish in one day what might otherwise have taken weeks.

The making of force horses would prove to be their greatest problem, Rhianna knew. It was a time-consuming process.

With horses, an endowment could only be transferred to the leader of a herd, whether it be a stallion or a mare.

Thus, creating a force horse sounded as if it should be easy. You could just cut the leader from the herd, and then draw endowments from the colts above one year of age.

But it wasn t so easy as all of that. You didn t want to take endowments from just any colt. For brawn, you might want a heavy war horse, perhaps one of the imperial breed. For speed, a racehorse from the desert. For stamina, a simple workhorse might do, though mules were sometimes used. For wit, there was a breed called the Carther Mountain ponies.

And so before the facilitators could endow a horse, they had to take the strongest adults, horses two years or a bit above of age, and corral them with five or six others, creating a small herd, and then give the animals a day to fight.

Once a herd leader emerged, the endowments could be stripped from the others.

By dusk, Rhianna hoped, the first forty force horses would be ready to go.

But humans were not so finicky when it came to granting endowments, and before dawn a facilitator came to Rhianna s tent. She was a small woman with dark hair, in costly attire.

"We are ready for the ceremony," she said. "Which endowment would you like first?"

Rhianna hadn t given it much thought. Brawn, she wondered. Or speed.

In that moment s hesitation, the facilitator made up Rhianna s mind for her. "Glamour," she said. "When creating a powerful Runelord, the first few should always be glamour-and then voice. It makes it easier for others to give their endowments to those that they love, and you will be stronger for it in the long run."

Rhianna s heart skipped a beat at the thought. Glamour. Raj Ahten had been rich with it, so rich that women who should have hated him were filled with lust, and would spread their legs for him. Men who saw him imagined that there could be no maliciousness in him.

"When you see the face of pure evil," an old saying went, "it will be beautiful."

Rhianna wanted to be beautiful, as fair as a summer morn, as powerful as a tempest. She had heard of Raj Ahten s wife Saffira, with hundreds of endowments of glamour. No man could resist her. To look upon her made men weak with desire.

Fallion will love me, Rhianna thought. I can make him love me more than he could ever imagine.

And as quickly as the thought came, she repented of it, trying to force the selfish desire away.

"Glamour," she confirmed.

The endowment ceremony took place in Sister Daughtry s pavilion, with Rhianna and her new Dedicate resting among plush cushions.

Her first Dedicate was a young girl, perhaps no more than sixteen. In the blush of youth, her eyes were bright and her skin as white as cream.

"In giving this gift," she said, looking noble and tragic, "I honor you, and I give myself for my land. Use my gift well, milady."

The girl s courtly mannerisms were overstated. She tried to look brave, but she was trembling in fear.

"Be of comfort," Rhianna said. "Your gift does you honor. I promise to engage it in the service of our people, and I will remember always this covenant between us."

But even as Rhianna said the words, she wondered how she could keep such a promise. She wanted the girl s beauty so badly, she ached for it.

The facilitator took a forcible and inspected it, then began her harking song as she sought to ease the mind of the Dedicate. All too quickly, the forcible began to glow white-hot. The facilitator touched it to the back of the girl s neck, and then pulled away a snake of light. It seemed to extend from the girl, growing longer and longer, as the facilitator examined it.

Rhianna was lost in her imaginings all through the ceremony, wondering how well Fallion might love her. And in a moment, the facilitator touched the forcible to Rhianna s breast, and her mind seemed to explode. The feeling of health that entered her, of well-being and ecstasy, was something she could never have imagined. It struck through her like lightning, and for an instant the pleasure was so intense that she blacked out.

When she came to, a facilitator s aide put a robe over the new Dedicate, and pulled down a deep brown hood, so that Rhianna could not see the girl s face.

Rhianna knew what the girl would look like, though. Those fine bright eyes would be dull and lusterless, their whites having gone to sickly yellow. Her smooth skin would be dry and papery. Her gleaming hair would have turned limp and dull. Her face would be a wreck.

The facilitator studied Rhianna for an instant, the way that a sculptor might look at his own work, searching it for defects. "Beautiful," she said. "You look so beautiful."

It was near dawn, and the campfires sputtered and raged in a contrary wind outside the tent. War horns blew in the distance, and there was some commotion as riders came into camp, announcing that they had caught a wyrmling woman. Rhianna went outside to see the cause of the commotion, and saw only a young girl, giant though she was. Her hands were tied together, and she had been forced to run for miles while horse-sisters drove her from behind at lance-point.

"What is this?" Sister Daughtry called to the sisters as they brought their charge toward camp.

"One of the white giants," the horse-sisters said. "We found her to the north, with three men on her tail. She speaks Inkarran."

Sister Daughtry studied the girl, impressed at her size. "So this is one of your wyrmlings," she whispered under her breath to Rhianna. "This is what we must fight?"

Sister Daughtry called out to the girl, "Kwi et choulon zah?"

"Kirissa Mentarn," the girl answered. Then she began to speak rapidly. Sister Daughtry inclined her head and frowned.

"Was there a man with her, a huge wyrmling?"

"There was," one rider answered.

"She asks what happened to him."

"He s dead. He fought two other wyrmlings, and wounded both before they killed him. We avenged him," the rider said.

Sister Daughtry broke the news to the girl in halting words. The wyrmling girl did not seem surprised, and though there was sadness in her face, she was not overwrought with grief.

Instead, she kept peering at Rhianna, at her wings, as if Rhianna were some icon of great power. Indeed, though she faced the others, her eyes stayed riveted upon Rhianna, as if she believed that Rhianna led the clans.

Kirissa kept talking, spewing out words in flawless Inkarran so quickly that Sister Daughtry seemed incapable of following. "She says that when the worlds were tied together, two halves of herself became one," Daughtry explained. "At least that is what I think she is saying. She found herself among the wyrmling horde, and tried to escape. She wants to go home, to Inkarra."

Rhianna said, "Ask her if she has seen a wizard, a young man with wings like mine."

Daughtry asked the question, and the girl nodded violently and began pointing to the ground, as if to explain where she had seen him. She demonstrated how the man had wings like Rhianna s.

Fallion, Rhianna realized. This woman had seen Fallion. Everything in Rhianna made her want to grab the wyrmling girl and force the information out of her, but Rhianna knew only a few words of Inkarran.

Sister Daughtry grew thoughtful. "We must find a translator. The girl knows of your man. She has not seen him personally, but knows where to find him. I do not speak enough Inkarran to trust myself to the task of translating."

One horse-sister offered, "Sister Gadron speaks the tongue well. She is riding in the Winters Camp, last I heard."

"Go and beg her to join us," Sister Daughtry said. Then she told the riders, "Feed and water this girl. Untie her. Treat her as a guest. Though she is a giant, she is not much more than a child. When Sister Gadron arrives, we ll learn what we can learn."

Rhianna studied the girl, who squatted on the ground timidly while children from the camp circled her, gaping. For her part, the girl peered up at Rhianna in frank wonder and jutted her chin toward Rhianna s wings once again, as if to remark upon them. Then the girl lowered her head in token of respect.

She knows what I had to kill to win these wings, Rhianna realized. What she doesn t know is how many more of the Knights Eternal I plan to kill.

Rhianna went back into the tent, and left the wyrmling girl out on the plains, the wind blustering through her hair while smoke from the camp-fires roiled across the ground.

By noon Rhianna had taken eighty endowments, including enough brawn, grace, stamina, and metabolism from the clan s strongest men that she could fight any wyrmling warrior.

But more than that, she had three endowments of voice from the horse-sisters finest singers. Hearing and scent were taken from camp dogs. Endowments of wit came from three of the horse-sisters brightest young students.

Rhianna had never imagined what it would be like to be a powerful Runelord.

With three endowments of wit, she was able to recall nearly everything that she saw and heard flawlessly.

Her endowments of hearing and scent seemed to open whole new worlds of perception, for with endowments of scent from dogs, the world seemed to expand, and her mind came alive to nuances of smell and taste that had always been beyond mere mortals. She could taste the scent of blood on the wind from miles away, and suddenly she realized how this keen new sense might warn her of future dangers.

With three endowments of hearing, she became aware of women whispering in their tents a hundred yards off. With endowments of sight, finches and sparrows in the far fields seemed to stand out with crystalline clarity.

She had gone nearly two days without sleep, but with her endowments of stamina, she did not feel weary.

I need never sleep again, Rhianna realized.

Late that morning, the translator arrived to question Kirissa. Sister Gadron was a small mousy woman who rode a blood mount. She smelled of sheep and children, and had marvelously white skin-almost as pale as a wyrmling s. Her long silver hair hung neatly down her back, and dark tattoos snaked along her leg and circled her wrist like bangles. She was obviously a full-blooded Inkarran.

Rhianna followed her into a tent, where Kirissa hid from the daylight beneath a sheepskin.

The sun beating through the red silken walls of the tent burned Kirissa s eyes so that she kept her head turned aside and down, and closed them as much as possible as she spoke with the Inkarran.

The presence of one of the winged ones in the room made Kirissa nervous. Among wyrmlings only the Death Lords wore wings, as did the royals. Kirissa could not be sure whom the woman had killed for the wings.

At first, the questions were easy: What is your name? Where are you from? Why are you here in the desert?

For two long hours the translator asked questions, and Kirissa answered them all. Only a few times did the questions stump her. The first was of her lineage. It was important in Inkarra, and Kirissa was able to tell Sister Gadron about her family there, but among the wyrmlings family was nothing-unless one was of royal blood.

Then it was queries about ancient history. Where did the wyrmlings hail from?

It was a question that Kirissa had never heard an answer to. The study of history was not important to wyrmlings. Time wiped away all clues to the past.

The horse-sisters grilled her about leadership. Sister Gadron asked what the emperor planned to do with the small folk? What would he do if he was attacked?

Kirissa told her, "I can only guess at the emperor s plans, but what does that matter? The Great Wyrm now walks the labyrinth. Despair himself is in charge. The emperor is now just another Death Lord, a shade."

"Who is this Great Wyrm?" Sister Gadron asked.

"Despair, the creator of heaven and earth, the great lord of all wyrms. It takes human form from time to time, and two nights ago, the Great Wyrm seized the body of a new host."

At last Sister Gadron was satisfied with Kirissa s story, unsettling though it might be. Now the questions turned to Cullossax.

"What did Cullossax do in Rugassa?" Sister Gadron asked.

Kirissa answered, "He was a tormentor. It was his job to torture and punish those who broke wyrmling laws, whether their offense consisted of actively doing wrong, or failing to do well. By killing the weak and unruly, he culled the horde."

"Why did he run? Was he your lover? Your father?"

Kirissa hesitated. "I think he wanted to destroy the horde, to help create a better society."

"So you converted him?"

Kirissa shrugged. "It appeared so."

"Can many wyrmlings be converted, do you think?"

Kirissa had never considered that question. "No," she said. "Most of them would be too afraid to run. They have heard of the terrors of life outside the keep-the burning sun, the merciless humans. I ran only because I knew that there was a better life."

Sister Gadron s next query was foolish. "Did he love you?"

"Humans love," Kirissa answered. "Wyrmlings merely spawn. It is not the same."

"Why do you have nubs on your head?" Sister Gadron asked.

"Because I am old enough to grow them."

"Do you have a wyrm feeding upon your soul?"

"How would I know?"

"Why do you want to give your soul to a wyrm?"

Again, Kirissa hesitated. "I never wanted that. Not all wyrmlings do. Only the most devout have such hopes. I was always afraid that the wyrms wished only to feed upon us."

"How many of your own wyrmling people have you killed?"

"Two," Kirissa said. "I killed another girl when I was four, and one when I was eight."

"Why did you kill them?"

"They angered me. Among the wyrmling horde, what I did was not considered wrong. I fought them with knives, and won the respect of others."

"Do you know right from wrong?"

"I know wyrmling law," Kirissa said, "and I know Inkarran law. I have a feeling that matters of right and wrong go deeper than either law."

"You said earlier that when Cullossax took you from your school, he was supposed to lead you to slaughter. Have you eaten the flesh of your own people?"

"I ate what was put before me," Kirissa said. "Among the wyrmlings there is a saying, Flesh is flesh. It does not matter whether it is human or animal, but some prefer wyrmling flesh."

"Why is that?"

"It is said that wyrmling flesh tastes better than that of other animals. The meat of a child is sweetest of all."

"When you killed other children, did you eat them afterward?"

"That is an honor that I won," Kirissa said.

Sister Gadron rephrased some of her questions. The small woman asked again about wyrms. Do you have a wyrm in you? Do you take orders from a wyrm? Are you infested with a wyrm?

At last when she was satisfied, the woman with wings asked a question, and Sister Gadron translated. "Can you draw a map of Rugassa?"

Kirissa hesitated. For two hours she had been burning with curiosity about the winged woman. Now she dared ask the question that haunted her. "First, may I have the honor of asking some questions?"

The translator said, "I suppose."

"Who did you kill to get those wings?"

The translator spoke to the winged woman, and she answered, "I slew a Knight Eternal, at the battle of Caer Luciare."

The news made Kirissa s heart swell with relief. She began to weep tears.

"Why are you crying?" the winged woman asked.

"Because the Knights Eternal can be killed," Kirissa said. At her hosts expression of bafflement, Kirissa continued, "From the moment that I decided to run, one question has burned in my mind: will the wyrmlings kill us all, or will we be able to fight and destroy them. When the Earth King died, he warned me that the time will come when the small ones of the world must stand against the large. But having seen the wyrmling horde, I am terrified. My fear is that they will overwhelm us. I have heard rumors of strange things happening-beasts being brought from shadow worlds, and the coming of Despair. The wyrmlings are more dangerous than you know."

Kirissa continued, "But if you can kill a Knight Eternal, if you can strike down their leaders, then there is some hope."

Kirissa studied the winged woman, her pale red hair and strong cheeks. There was an air of dangerousness about her. She had the taut posture of one who has practiced with the sword for long hours, and the thickness of her thighs, calves, and biceps all bore witness to such labors.

"Do you have a name?" Kirissa asked.

"Rhianna," the woman said, and Kirissa repeated the name in her mind, over and over.

Rhianna, she thought, my savior.

Rhianna asked her question again, this time speaking in Inkarran. "Can you draw a map of Rugassa?"

"That would be impossible," Kirissa said. "It is said that no one knows the labyrinth in whole-at least not among the common folk. The labyrinth is vast, and there are many passages with many twists and turns. The corridors rise and fall, so that you never know what level you are on. I knew only a small part of it. I could try to make you a map, but I know some passages by their look. If I were to miscount the doors you had to pass to get somewhere, you would be forever lost."

"Do you know where the wizard Fallion Orden is kept?" Rhianna asked through the interpreter, and there was a depth of longing in her voice.

"He is in the dungeon, in the human wing," Kirissa said. "I saw him."

"Was he alive?"

"Yes," Kirissa said, "last that I saw."

"Do you know where Areth Sul Urstone is kept?"

"I do not know what cell he is kept in."

"Is he alive?"

"I do not know."

"Could you lead me to them? Do you know the labyrinth well enough?"

Kirissa pondered. "No. I was there once, but only once. My tormentor cuffed me unconscious along the way. I don t remember how to reach the dungeons. I m sorry."

Suddenly Rhianna fell silent, became thoughtful.

Kirissa asked, "Are you going to free me?"

"If you were free, what would you do?" Rhianna asked.

"Go home," Kirissa said.

"How could you go," Rhianna asked, "knowing what the wyrmling horde is going to do? Would it not be better to fight? You could be a great help to me."

Kirissa bit her lower lip, and considered. Somehow, in the back of her mind, she d known when she left the keep that it would come to this. The Earth King himself had warned her that this time would come.

"I ll help you," Kirissa said. "What will you ask of me?"

Through her interpreter, Rhianna said, "We are going to rescue Fallion Orden and Areth Sul Urstone."

Kirissa recalled the guard that she had heard about in Fallion Orden s cell. "That will be difficult. Vulgnash guards him, and it is rumored that he has taken many endowments."

"Of course," Rhianna said, undeterred. "We anticipate that the wyrmlings will do all within their power to thwart us. But we must try anyway. Will you help us?" she asked. "You have said that you want to make a better world. This would be a fine place to start."

"If I go back with you," Kirissa said, "my life is over. My only hope for survival is if you grant me endowments."

Rhianna studied her, eyes narrowing, showing the smallest worry lines. "Who would grant endowments to a wyrmling?" she asked. "Perhaps we can find another way…"

In the early afternoon, Rhianna paced through the camp. She felt so strong, so full of energy that she could not hold still. That was part of her problem. But more than anything else, she worried.

Sister Daughtry came and walked beside her. "You ve heard troubling news?"

Certainly Sister Daughtry had heard everything that Rhianna had. Still, it helped to have someone to talk with.

"If Kirissa is right, there is a new enemy leading the wyrmling horde, one that has gone by many names-the Great Wyrm, Despair, the One True Master of Evil.

"Daylan Hammer and the others need to know this. But there is no way that I can reach them."

Sister Daughtry s face was an unreadable mask. Rhianna suspected that she was trying hard to hide her own alarm.

"Your friends said that they would make their attack on Rugassa within three days, is that correct?"

"Yes," Rhianna said. "But I m worried that they will take too long. Rugassa s new master will need forcibles, thousands and thousands of them."

"And of course," Sister Daughtry said, "the wyrmlings will be out to impress their new master. You said that the wyrmlings can be expected to travel a hundred miles in a night. But your little Kirissa has shown us that a wyrmling can travel by daylight, if the need is strong enough."

"Exactly," Rhianna said. "Daylan Hammer, I m sure, imagined that the wyrmlings would travel only by night. He may be right. The blood metal is so precious, they ll want to have Death Lords and Knights Eternal to guard their caravan, and the Death Lords cannot abide the day.

"But for the sake of haste, the wyrmlings might elect to move the blood metal by air, using their giant graaks. Even a Knight Eternal might carry a few."

"If you re right," Sister Daughtry said, "it might well be that the wyrmlings have already moved some ore, flown it from Caer Luciare to Rugassa."

"I doubt it," Rhianna said. "The wyrmlings took the city at dawn two days ago. I saw no sign of them mining by daylight when we left. That means that they waited until sunset to begin. They would have started digging last night. But the refining process is easy, and it won t take long.

"Blood metal boils at a low heat. You must heat it, stir, let the impurities settle and cool a bit, then pour off the clean metal from the top. Several times, if I recall."

"Twenty times is best," Sister Daughtry said. "Though it can be done fewer."

"So refining it will still take more than a single night," Rhianna thought aloud.

Sister Daughtry said, "They would have taken the ore into the fortress and worked on it throughout the day."

"That means that their caravan probably did not get on the road until last night, at sunset, at the earliest."

"If the blood metal was sent by graak," Sister Daughtry said, "then it may have already reached Rugassa."

Rhianna fought back the urge to pace.

"You will not rest until you know where that shipment is," Sister Daughtry said, giving her a knowing look.

Rhianna did not hesitate. She leapt in the air and took off in a rush of wings, flying toward Rugassa. She was determined to go there first, then trace the route south as she searched for the wyrmling convoy.

With so many endowments of metabolism and brawn, she sped through the air like a bolt. In less than an hour she neared Rugassa. With her endowments of sight, she could see the roads well enough to recognize that there were no convoys traveling in the afternoon sun.

Her only hope was that the convoy was still farther south.

She veered, hurtling along. Her four endowments of metabolism made her swifter than a falcon.

Rhianna skirted above the trees and brush, staying nearly half a mile in the air. Much of the country was lush fields that had gone brown with the summer sun. The intermittent oaks were a dark green.

She found the convoy none too soon. The sun was falling in a red haze.

A giant black graak could be seen ahead, sleeping beside a rocky crag, in the shadows on the northern exposure of a wooded hill. It raised its snake-like neck and peered up into the trees. She could see perhaps a dozen wyrmling guards breaking their camp, some of them hauling chests to load onto the graak while others puttered around.

Rhianna was loath to do battle with so many wyrmlings, but she had no choice. If she left them to their own affairs, their load of forcibles would reach Rugassa tonight.

And if she did not attack now, she would lose the advantage of daylight.

She climbed high in the air, flying toward the sun, then folded her wings and dove toward the guards.

They never saw her coming. At the last instant she folded her wings, molding them to her body, and went hurtling just overhead of the huge graak-a sharpened sword snicking the neck of the graak, then taking the heads off of two guards.

The graak roared in panic and tried to lift into the air, but a great leather rope bound it to a tree, so that it flapped and roared and lurched about angrily as it died.

The wyrmlings were thrown into a panic. Their reaction surprised her. Six of the guards scattered, rushing blindly into the shadows of the trees, trying to escape. Two others threw down their weapons, hoping for mercy.

Only two of them prepared for battle.

Rhianna suddenly realized that she was moving so blindingly fast that the wyrmlings hadn t got a good look at her. They saw only the wings, and most of them seemed to believe that she was one of their own Knights Eternal. Perhaps they feared that they had displeased their masters somehow.

With a rush of insight, Rhianna realized that she would not need allies for this raid.

I am an army, she thought.

With that she dove into the wyrmlings, to take vengeance for the man she loved.

She swept into two defenders who had kept their wits. One of them hurled an iron war dart, but she easily dipped a wing, dodging the missile.

He raised his ax high, and Rhianna folded her wings at the last instant, letting her weight carry her under his guard. She cut him down at the knee, hurtled past him; then in a thunder of wings she slowed her course, flipped in the air, landed, and faced the next challenge.

The second guard roared and spun to meet her with such speed that Rhianna realized that he must have taken a few endowments himself, but she was endowed like one of the great Runelords of old, and he was no match for her. She plunged her blade into him three times before he could raise a shield to defend himself, and while he began to stagger from his death blow, she whirled and went after the surrendering guards, cutting them down even as they realized their error.

Then she flew into the woods, giving chase to those that had fled.

Two minutes later, not a wyrmling was left.

The giant graak lay on its belly, bleeding its life away, panting from exertion.

There were half a dozen chests on the ground. Rhianna lifted one, heard the clank of forcibles. By its heft, she figured that it weighed a hundred pounds, and held a thousand forcibles.

One by one, Rhianna lugged each chest into the sky, and then flew them to an abandoned well near an old farmhouse some twenty miles off.

There was no way to erase the signs of her battle. The enormous graak lay in a ruined heap, and Rhianna could not afford to waste time by trying to hide the body.

As a trophy of war, she carried a chest with a thousand forcibles back to the horse clans.