David Farland - The Wyrmling Horde

"Queen Lowicker," Rhianna said, "surrender your realm."

"To whom?" Allonia said.

"The horse-sisters of Fleeds."

"Monsters to the east of me and Runelords to the west," Allonia said. "What ever shall I do? Oh, I know. You want my kingdom? Well you can have it."

Those who called her the Brat had spoken truly, Rhianna decided. There was a jarring petulant quality to this woman that Rhianna found disquieting. Almost, Rhianna wished that she could send the queen flying over the nearest parapet.

But the bravado was false. Rhianna could see that Allonia s face was pale, and her heart was beating in her chest like a caged bird. Her eyes were puffy. Obviously she had not slept well. Perhaps she had been up worrying about her kingdom through the night.

"I ll want your endowment as proof of surrender," Rhianna said. "And you must also convince your troops to lay down their arms. Those monsters at your door, they re called wyrmlings, and they re worse than anything you might have dreamed. I can save you from them. I can save your people. But I can t do it if I have to watch out for you over my shoulder."

The two endowments of voice that Rhianna had taken must have done their trick, for tears sprang to Allonia Lowicker s eyes, hot tears that went leaping down her cheeks in a stream.

"I know," she said, as if relieved to be rid of her kingdom. "I ll give it to you, whatever you want. Please, save my people."

Wit, Rhianna decided. She had to take Allonia s wit. A person who had given grace or stamina might be weakened, but they could still plot against you, still whisper into the ears of would-be conspirators. But a lord robbed of wit was nothing but a burden to those who cared for her-a creature that needed to be diapered and fed and sung to like a child.

"Wit," Rhianna said at last. "I want your wit."

Rhianna tried to demand the endowment stoically, but inside she felt that she was breaking.

I am becoming Raj Ahten, she thought. I am thinking as he thought, acting as he acted.

She knew the danger. She had shed blood before, and been seized by a locus. Fallion had burned the creature up, and said that she no longer had a stain on her soul.

But Rhianna was walking a thin line. She was acting like a wolf lord.

"You can have it," Allonia said. "With what I ve heard about the feeding habits of our new neighbors, I don t want to know what happens."

By midmorning, the Brat had a rune branded on her forehead, and Rhianna had her wit.

Queen Lowicker had several facilitators on staff, and they were quick to press local jewelers and silversmiths into service, preparing forcibles. Rhianna herself took a dozen more endowments each of glamour and voice.

Some women gazed upon her now and grew sick with envy. They looked upon her lustrous skin, her radiant eyes, and they despaired of ever being loved, while men gaped at her and seemed almost beyond restraint, like men who are dying of thirst and are suddenly confronted with water.

Rhianna took a few more endowments from Lowicker s nobles-sight, hearing, and touch, so that she would better find her way around when she breached the defenses of Rugassa, along with more brawn, grace, wit, and stamina.

Near noon, she went to where the wyrmling Kirissa was hiding from the sun. The wyrmling girl was forced to sit in an enclosed wagon, a crude carriage with windows that could be shuttered against the light.

Inside the wagon, Kirissa applied a salve to her sunburned skin. One of the horse-sisters had given it to her. She had not asked for it, and it seemed a great boon. In Rugassa, a wyrmling was expected to bear her pains stoically, as a sign of strength. No balm like this existed.

If the wyrmlings knew of such medicines, Kirissa thought, they would kill their masters and storm out of Rugassa, never to return.

So she rubbed it on the bridge of her nose and on her ears and cheeks and hands, the places where she d burned the most. The burn was a raging fire, but the touch of the balm soothed it instantly.

She prepared to hide the balm under her seat, in the wyrmling manner, to save for later.

Yet something about the salve intrigued her. It was a symbol. She had not asked for it. The horse-sister who had given it to her had done so for no other reason than that she saw that Kirissa was in pain, and the girl desired to help. She asked for no coin in return.

These people bear one another s burdens, Kirissa realized. They do not use others as tools, or seek solely to profit from them.

Kirissa was having a hard time divorcing herself from the wyrmling catechisms. Before the binding, part of herself had lived among the Inkarrans, but that shadow self had never been philosophically inclined.

In Kirissa s mind the whole notion of a society built not upon greed and fear, but upon love and compassion, seemed revolutionary.

Her thoughts began to explode. She could see how simple acts of kindness, multiplied over and over as tens of thousands of people per day made small gifts, might be the foundation for a new world.

In Inkarra, her people had prided themselves on fairness. Yes, elements of fear and greed were used to motivate people, but primarily her society was founded upon fairness.

Perhaps things were different here.

She had heard of the horse-sisters, but Kirissa had lived so far away that the horse-sisters were no more than fables. Legends said that these women had the bodies of horses and the heads and breasts of women, because long ago they bred with horses.

So when the winged woman, Rhianna, came early that afternoon with Sister Gadron to the wagon to speak, Kirissa was eager to get to know Rhianna better. Earlier, Kirissa had been able to ask only a few questions.

Rhianna began speaking through the translator and began to query Kirissa in detail. "When we reach Rugassa, how can we enter without being seen?" she asked.

"You can t," Kirissa said. "The wyrmlings watch by day and night. Many eyes will be following you as you approach."

"How many guards are at each entrance?"

"I don t know," Kirissa said. "I saw a dozen when I left the fortress, but that was the only time I ve ever been through an outer gate."

"What defenses do the guards employ?"

"There are kill holes above each entrance," Kirissa said, "and hidden tunnels behind the walls. Once you enter the labyrinth, you must fear getting lost. There are other defenses. Some of the main tunnels can be flooded with magma if the need is pressing."

Rhianna went on like this for an hour, grilling Kirissa about troop strengths, about the quarters where the Knights Eternal slept, about the habits of Death Lords-asking questions that Kirissa really could not answer. Rhianna asked about other threats-the emperor himself, the Great Wyrm, and the kezziard pens. She asked about other creatures within the pens-giant graaks and things that were stranger still-but while Kirissa had heard tales of creatures from the shadow worlds, she had never seen such things herself.

At the end of that hour, Rhianna began speaking to Kirissa in Inkarran. Rhianna s vocabulary was limited, childishly so, and in some instances she confused the order of words, but the words were precisely formed and Kirissa could understand her intent.

More interestingly, though Rhianna was human, she spoke to Kirissa in her own voice, in the deep voice of a wyrmling.

She learns faster than any wyrmling, Kirissa realized. She has memorized every word that I have spoken in the past hour.

Kirissa stared at her in awe. Rhianna was of the small folk, and her size was unimpressive. But it had been hundreds of years since a human had slain a Knight Eternal.

This is a mighty lord, Kirissa realized, as dangerous as Emperor Zul-torac himself.

But she had little time to ponder the implications of this observation, for Rhianna immediately began to delve into new topics, having the translator ask, "How do you tell a wyrmling to surrender? How do you say, Throw down your weapons."