David Farland - The Wyrmling Horde

Fallion went to Daylan s cell, and began ministering to him. The emir climbed unsteadily to his feet, jutted his chin toward Rhianna. "Your winged friend here is the fastest. She has the best chance of escape, and her charge matters more than we do. Please, tell her to go. I cannot save the father, but perhaps we can help save the son."

Talon translated the emir s thoughts. By the time that she was through, Daylan Hammer was sputtering and moaning in the other room.

But suddenly the golden glow of the sunstone faded, its light all but dying. Fallion came from the room. Twisting the stone around, Fallion studied it. It shone like a dull ember. "The fire is all but gone from it. Do you have another?"

Rhianna looked to Talon. Rhianna s had been destroyed, and Daylan s and the emir s sunstones had been taken.

"That was the last one," Talon said.

"Go," Talon told Rhianna. "Take Fallion with you. He can do no more good here, and we ll just slow you down. We ll follow you out as soon as we can."

"It won t be easy to carry the wyrmling girl," Rhianna warned. "Perhaps we should leave her."

"I can t," Talon argued. "Besides, we d have to carry her regardless. Without endowments, she s nothing but dead weight."

Rhianna hesitated, as if trying to think of a sound reason to stay with them, but reluctantly she nodded her agreement. She d take Fallion. "Remember, kill no one. So long as we pose no threat, their false Earth King will not know where we are."

"That may be easier said than done," Talon argued.

Then Talon rushed into the wyrmling girl s cell and lifted her gently. With Talon s eight endowments of brawn, the girl seemed bulky, but not too heavy to bear. Talon s real concern wasn t that she would tire, but that under so much weight one of her bones might snap and she would be left hobbling about, unable to bear her charge.

She left Daylan Hammer and the emir to help one another.

So they began their journey, racing as fast as they could through the labyrinth, toiling up the winding stairs. The emir led the way, followed by Rhianna, who had Fallion clinging to her back. Without endowments of metabolism, he couldn t even begin to keep pace with the others.

The distant tolling of bells must have called the wyrmlings out. The company met them in the corridor at nearly every turn. Each time that they did, Rhianna would simply roar at them like a Knight Eternal sounding a battle cry. With her flawless memory, she knew the call well. With her endowments of voice, she could mimic it perfectly.

The emir shoved aside those who did not get out of the way. With his speed and brawn, the smallest push sent the wyrmlings toppling.

And as they moved through the hot corridors, Fallion began to recover his strength completely. He drew heat from air, channeling it into himself so that he glowed brightly. The wyrmlings roared in pain at the sight of him and backed away.

Rhianna reached the top landing, and charged down a wide corridor. Talon could hear the toll of the warning bell clearly now.

Ahead, a contingent of wyrmling soldiers marched toward them, four abreast. There were perhaps thirty in all. They cringed from the light, and Rhianna roared, but she did not give them time to withdraw.

She flapped her wings once and leapt, went soaring above their heads; some troops turned to engage her. In that instant, the emir and Daylan Hammer rushed in among the wyrmlings.

None of the wyrmling soldiers had endowments, it seemed. The emir and Daylan shoved the wyrmlings aside, half to the right, half to the left, so that they fell in tangled heaps. They d cleared a path for Talon.

She rushed through, trampling over the few fallen wyrmlings who tried to rise.

We re lucky that there were no Death Lords among them, Talon thought. But her hope was that the Death Lords would be slow to come.

The emir grabbed weapons from the fallen soldiers-a few daggers and a pair of heavy axes.

They reached a great archway, and suddenly Talon knew where she was. They d reached the Arena of the Great Wyrm. Talon could smell the fetid air inside.

Rhianna bypassed it and led the way down the tunnel toward the southern gates.

Talon recalled the great iron doors that had fallen behind them earlier; she worried that she and her friends might still be locked in.

The warning bells were tolling heavily, making the walls vibrate with every resounding gong.

The company sped through in haste now, and as they sprinted ahead, Talon saw the great iron doors beginning to fall. Rhianna reached the spot and ducked beneath, but Talon was lugging the big wyrmling girl and could not match her speed.

I m not going to make it, she thought.

The emir raced to the door and rolled under, while Daylan dropped to his belly and skidded.

For an instant Talon feared that they had all left her behind.

But then the door slammed to a halt, and she saw what had happened. Two wyrmling axes had been placed beneath the door, their pommels in a groove in the floor, their heads up forming a T.

The emir had paved the way for her escape.

Talon reached the door, dropped her charge, and rolled under. By the time that she got to her feet, Daylan and the emir had pulled the wyrmling through, and the emir urged Talon, "You go ahead. I ll give you a rest."

Talon realized what he was doing. She had far more endowments than he. She might well be needed if it came to a fight. She didn t dare waste her energy being a pack mule.

So she went charging down the corridor, now racing ahead of Rhianna. Wyrmling troops were suddenly thick in the tunnels, and Talon had to shove each of them aside, gently, as if she were only practicing moves for a sparring match.

Suddenly she reached the exit, smelled open fields and pine trees, and went charging out into the night. The sky seemed to yawn wide overhead, and stars powdered the heavens. Off to the east, the slender crescent of a new moon was just clearing the mountains.

Down below her, tens of thousands of wyrmlings filled the courtyard.

Lord Despair was in his private quarters, dining with Scathain and making plans for the future, when he heard the warning gongs. Scathain raised a brow, giving Despair an inquisitive look, and Despair wondered what had happened. He felt inside himself, seeking the counsel of the Earth Spirit. There was no attack. Neither he nor any of his chosen lords were in danger, of that he felt certain.

"Probably one of the tunnels has collapsed," Despair told his visitor. "That is a constant danger when living underground. In the recent binding of the worlds, the ground here has been destabilized. A couple of small sections of tunnel have collapsed in the past few days. It is probably nothing."

It took several long minutes for the captain of the guard to bring word, interrupting dinner.

"Lord Despair," the captain cried as soon as he entered the door, "the prisoners have escaped!"

Despair stared blankly at the man for half a second, unsure if he believed his ears. This was a terrible embarrassment.

"Impossible," Despair said.

I chose my prisoners guards, he thought. The earth should have warned me if they had been killed.

He looked into his heart, felt for the guards in the dungeon. His earth senses let him pinpoint their location.

They were alive. They were well. They were at their posts still.

Suddenly Despair laughed at his own folly.

"That clever girl," he told his guest. "She came in right under our noses and stole my prisoners-without taking a single life!

"But it will do her no good. Fallion is one of my chosen ones. I can sense his whereabouts."

He felt the young man, fleeing swiftly from the fortress.

Despair rushed out to the parapet of his tower, and in one mighty leap he was atop one of his stone gargoyles, peering down from it, using its head as his vantage point.