Worldbinder

THE BATTLE FOR THE OUTER WALL

Fallion suspected that it was only two hours before dawn as he and Jaz winged back to Caer Luciare. The air felt chill and heavy, as it does in the hours before dawn.

Fallion studied the castle’s defenses from the air.

Luciare climbed the mountain in steps, houses built on terraces that bordered a winding road. Two walls protected the city-a lower wall that surrounded the market, and an upper wall to defend the warrens. Both walls had moats filled with water that cascaded down from the mountain’s heights.

The lower walls were well defended. It looked as if every able-bodied man and woman in the city had turned out.

Fallion spotted Rhianna above the upper wall, standing on the broad terrace, looking about as if unsure what to do.

Fallion swooped and landed beside her, found himself hitting ground so fast he tripped and fell headlong.

Jaz whooped with laughter and touched down beside him, managing to be only slightly less graceless.

Rhianna studied the wings, tried to hide a twinge of jealousy. Then turned and peered down over the hills. The wyrmlings were coming through the trees, banging weapons and singing.

“Have you seen Talon?” Fallion asked.

Rhianna shook her head no. “She’s been gone all night. I think she might be down on the lower wall. Where do you want to fight?”

“The closer we get, the better the view,” Fallion said. “But with an unfamiliar enemy, that might be dangerous.”

“You’ve been training with weapons all of your life,” Rhianna said. “I doubt they have any tricks they can teach you.”

“Yes,” Jaz teased. “He’s been training all of his short life.”

Fallion felt nervous. He could feel the electric thrill in the air that comes before battle. Yes, he’d trained all of his life, but not to fight against giants that outweighed him by three hundred pounds. “All right, I’d like a front-row seat, if it’s okay with you.”

“I’ve always wanted to get front-row seats to something,” Rhianna teased uneasily. “I’m just not sure if this is the best time start demanding them.”

Jaz asked, “So, how long do you think it will take before the wyrmlings bow to our superior skills?”

“Oh,” Fallion said, “they look like slow learners. I bet it will take them hours.”

“Good,” Jaz said. “We should all have quite a pile of dead at our feet before they catch on.”

“Let us hope,” Rhianna said, as they strode down the winding road to the lower levels.

Thousands of human warriors crowded atop the lower wall as the wyrmlings marched on the castle. But breaching the wall would not be easy. Luciare was no minor fortress. The lower wall rose eighty feet. Moreover, it was carved from living rock and thus had no seams, save the cracks made by frozen water over the eons. Even a kezziard could not climb it.

Fallion raced down the city streets to the outer wall, and stood upon the precipice, peering down. Clouds had wandered in overnight, sealing the skies, releasing a cool rain in some places, a slight mist that had abated only moments ago. A wayward breeze blew down the mountainside, mussing Fallion’s hair, buffeting his wings.

Out in the darkness, under the cover of trees, he could make out wyrmlings stirring in the shadows. But none dared the road, and he could not see what they were up to.

Young boys stood upon the walls, torch-bearers.

Fallion drew light from the nearest torches, sent it snaking down the hill under the woods, where it lingered among the fallen leaves beneath the trees.

Suddenly the outlines of the wyrmlings appeared.

The wyrmlings had brought enormous drums unlike anything that Fallion had ever seen-black drums, made from hollowed baobab trees. Each drum was at least forty feet long and was lugged by dozens of wyrmlings. One end of each log was covered in some dark hide, while the other end opened with a narrow hole.

The wyrmlings stayed afar off, about a quarter of a mile, and wrestled the drums, aiming the holes toward the city wall.

Upon the wall, the human defenders hunched low and braced themselves. There were cries of awe, and Fallion saw defenders counting in their own crude tongue. He estimated fifty drums in the woods, and the defenders seemed dismayed.

What are our people so afraid of? Fallion wondered.

Then huge wyrmlings with enormous clubs began to pound.

The first drum snarled and boomed, as if to hurl a curse. The drum exuded a percussive force like a physical blow that lifted Fallion from his feet, and set his very bones to aching.

“Ah!” Jaz cried. Fallion looked up to see him wiping blood from his nose.

The wall beneath them cracked. Stone shattered and rained down from the ledge.

“What makes them so powerful?” Fallion wondered aloud, for he had never seen such terrors. His very skin seemed to ache with the roll of the thunder drum.

“Spells,” Rhianna guessed. “Some type of rune of the air?”

Fallion wished that Talon were here so that he could ask her of the lore, but he had not seen her all night.

A second drum called out in a tone higher than the first, and did far less damage. The wyrmlings struggled with it, loosening the lid of the drum, and then a third called out, slightly deeper than the first.

“They’re looking for just the right pitch,” Rhianna guessed, “to break this stone.”

“Or my bones,” Jaz proclaimed.

Four or five more drums rang out experimentally, until the wyrmlings found the pitch they wanted.

Suddenly dozens of drums opened up. A wall of sound hit, blasting and thrumming, causing the mountain to shake as if it would collapse. Fallion had heard terrible thunderstorms in the summers back in Landesfallen, the thunder echoing from mountain to mountain. But this was fifty time worse. The air filled with snarls and booms, and the mountain shook mercilessly.

The wall beneath them cracked. Rubble began falling as the lip of the wall crumbled away. With each blast, the wyrmlings shifted their drums, taking aim at an unblemished portion of the wall.

Fallion had thought that the wyrmlings would take hours to breach this wall, but suddenly he realized that the lip was dropping at a rate of inches every moment. He could not have imagined the damage done with each blast. It was like striking soft stone with a mallet. The outer wall was crumbling, and with each crack, each indentation, it left an invitation for the kezziards’ claws.

In mere moments, the walls eroded as if a millennium’s worth of wind and ice had wrought upon them.

Fallion had imagined that it would be a long siege and that the humans might hold the outer wall all night. But the wall looked as if it might be breached in moments.

In dismay he realized that it had never been Luciare’s strong walls that had protected the city. Nor was it the power of its fighting men. Only a single hostage had stood between mankind and destruction.

The emperor must prize her more than we ever guessed, Fallion thought.

Fallion felt for sources of heat, wondering if he might set the woods ablaze. There were torches at his back all along the wall. But a light rain had fallen earlier, little more than a mist.

At this distance, it was enough to foil even his strongest spells.

A few men upon the walls fired huge bows or hurled the massive iron war darts that seemed to be favored here. They did little damage. The wyrmlings in the wood were shielded by leaf and limb.

Fallion drew heat from the torches into himself, savoring it. He exhaled, and smoke issued from his nostrils. He knew that if anyone looked at him, his eyes would be shining. He felt powerful, dangerous, even as the fortress walls shattered beneath him.

Then a huge shout erupted from the woods, and trees began to tremble as kezziards rumbled past them. The ground beneath the woods suddenly filled with white-the white of helms and armor whittled from bone, the white of the wyrmlings’ pale skin, and the white of their eyes shining like crystals.

Suddenly something huge lumbered up over the woods, giant graaks on heavy wings. A dozen of them came at once, wingtip to wingtip, forming a living wall. Scores of wyrmlings rode their backs.

Shouts of warning erupted as human warriors recognized the danger. The wyrmlings wouldn’t need kezziards to breach the walls. They could drop troops from the sky.

Upon the stone archway above the great gate to the city, the Wizard Sisel stood. Flowers and vines hung from the arch like a living curtain, and he stood there surrounded by greenery, as if in a forest. Down below, the wyrmlings troops rushed forward, roaring, and the giant graaks came winging well above the trees, the rush of wind from their wings rising like a storm.

The human defenders braced themselves, terror plain upon their faces, and Sisel raised his staff.

And there, from the grass along the castle wall, a million fireflies suddenly rose, arcing into the air like bright green sparks, filling the fields with light.

“Now,” King Urstone called at the wizard’s back. “By life and light, now is the time to strike!”

The humans charged to the crumbling lip of the wall, risking their lives to hurl war darts.

Wyrmlings cried in despair, as if to greet the Dark Lady herself in death.

The kezziards clambered forward, crushing wounded and fallen wyrmlings in their path, terrifying in their masks of woven chain. The lizards themselves were the color of fire, with enormous eyes that shone gold. Their tongues snapped and flickered as they scented the battlefield, yet despite the dying all around them, they trudged stupidly on.

Fallion saw dozens of kezziard riders die, iron darts splitting their faces.

Giant graaks neared the city.

Fallion stood, his wings nervously adjusting, preparing for flight.

High up on Mount Luciare, where clouds collided with stone, a pair of Knights Eternal clung to the wall, gripping it with dead fingers and the tiny claws at the joints of their wings.

There at the edge of the coming battle, in the sputtering light of the torches, they spotted the nervous unfolding wings.

The knights looked at each other.

“Fools,” one of them whispered. “They almost beg for death.”

The two winged human warriors hadn’t had time to adapt to a life of flight, and so they squatted along with the rest of their kind. Their attention was riveted on the enemy in front of them, when they should have been scanning the sky above.

With a kick, the Knights Eternal soundlessly broke away from the mountain wall, unfolded their wings, and swooped into a dive.

Like hawks they stooped, wings almost folded, using all of their strength to focus on the wingtips, keeping them rigid against the driving wind, gently tilting, making corrections, as they guided themselves toward their targets.

They gained speed as they fell, and soon were rushing toward ground. With just a tilt of the wingtips, they began to break, and went shooting just feet above the ground.

Thunder drums continued to boom, cracking walls and shattering stone. The wyrmlings wailed and snarled in death as the humans hurled their iron darts, and everywhere men were shouting battle cries. Fallion’s nerves jangled, and for a moment it seemed that all went silent as he tried to block out the sound.

From the castle wall above Fallion, he heard a roar of warning and imagined that from their higher vantage point the lookouts must have spotted some new threat.

Jaz leapt forward, taking aim with his great bow and loosing a black arrow into the throat of a wyrmling kezziard rider. He grabbed a second arrow in a blur, and took aim at a kezziard’s eye.

A war dart came hurtling up from a wyrmling below, and Jaz dodged aside even as he drew a new arrow.

A tall warrior stepped in front of Fallion, blocking his view; quickly Fallion ducked to his left to get a glimpse of the battlefield.

He heard a heavy chunk, crack, chunk.

The warrior that had blocked Fallion’s view suddenly grunted. Fallion glanced at him, and saw that a black dart now sprouted from his back.

The warrior staggered forward a pace and moaned as he toppled over the wall.

That dart barely missed me! Fallion realized. He wondered where it had come from. Obviously, there was an enemy behind him.

At that instant Jaz cried out, falling to his knees.

Fallion heard the muffled flapping of wings, a sound an owl might make as it takes a mouse. A Knight Eternal, he realized.

He ducked. At the same instant something enormous swooped above his head.

Then Fallion spotted a huge black iron war dart protruding from Jaz’s back.

For an instant, time froze. Fallion saw the panic in Rhianna’s eyes, saw her swing her staff wildly as a pair of Knights Eternal blurred above her. But as quickly as they had come, the enemy was gone, winging off into the shadows.

Fallion thought to follow, but knew that it would be too dangerous. He could no longer see them, and their flying skills far outmatched his own.

Jaz knelt on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. He coughed, and gobs of blood spattered to the ground.

He began to laugh just a bit as Fallion drew near.

“What?” Rhianna asked, grabbing for his shoulder, trying to pull him up. Jaz shook his head no, refusing her help.

Jaz looked up at Fallion, smiling broadly, while blood poured freely from his mouth. Tears glistened in his eyes.

“Do you hurt?” Rhianna asked, trying to comfort him.

“The poison…is cold.”

Jaz collapsed, his face banging onto the stone.

“Jaz!” Fallion cried, and reached down to grab him. He listened for Jaz to breathe, but only heard the air escape his brother’s throat.

Rhianna’s face was blank with shock.

All of the roaring, all of the snarl and bass of the thunder drums, all seemed but a small and distant noise. In that instant, Fallion knelt with his brother, utterly alone.

Then Rhianna was on him, trying to pull him back from the wall. “We’ve got to get away! They’re coming!”

Even as she spoke, a great sky serpent flapped overhead, and they were washed in the wind from its wings. Something wet splattered from the sky, and there was a crackling sound as it splashed to the stone walls.

Oil? Fallion wondered. Some vile poison?

But drops of red hit his face, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. Blood, he realized. Putrid blood, that smelled as if it had been days rotting in a barrel.

The very stench of it made him want to retch, and, oddly, the touch of it began to burn his skin. He heard a hissing sound around him as foul liquid landed on vines and trees and set them steaming.

Death, come to conquer life. It was more than mere blood. There was a spell upon it.

It was an omen.

Suddenly, Fallion felt disoriented. All of the rules of combat he had learned as a child meant nothing here. The wyrmlings fought a different kind of war.

Rhianna grabbed Jaz’s scabbard and bow, then pulled on Fallion’s shoulder, trying to lift him up.

Fallion staggered to his feet, went tottering behind her. He stared back, his eyes on Jaz, hoping that his brother might show some sign of life.

A huge human warrior reached down, grabbed Jaz by the wings, and began trying to lift him.

“He’s dead,” Fallion called back uselessly.

At that instant there was a tearing sound, and Jaz’s wings ripped free. His corpse sloughed away, slapping to the cold stone battlements.

Ah, Fallion realized. He wasn’t helping Jaz, just taking a prize of war.

Rhianna led Fallion away in a daze, racing up the cold stone streets. He couldn’t feel his feet. His body had gone numb. There were shouts everywhere. Giant graaks flapped high over the city while wyrmlings spattered their bloody elixir onto trees and gardens, set the trees and grass sizzling, then found a place to land.

Behind Fallion, there was a shout as kezziards hit the outer wall. Fallion did not understand the war clan’s language, but he knew what they were crying. “Pull back, pull back! The wyrmlings are over the wall.”

Fallion peered back toward Jaz one last time, but could not see him. The human warriors behind Fallion were in full retreat, blocking Fallion’s view, and a kezziard was climbing over the spot where Jaz’s body lay, the wyrmling riders looking fearsome in their thick armor.

In a more perfect world, Fallion thought, my brother is still alive.

He ached to take wing, to fly to the Mouth of the World and dare the tunnels down, seeking out the Seal of the Inferno.

Soon, he promised himself.

But there was a battle to fight first.