The Wyrmling Horde (24 page)

“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 snakelike 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.