David Farland - The Wyrmling Horde

The Darkling Glory raced up behind, flew atop a gargoyle beside him.

Down below were his prisoners, streaking out across the plain. Fallion was glowing brightly, a brilliant and unearthly white.

The prisoners were racing away so fast that Fallion looked almost like a comet streaking across the dark plain. Wyrmlings fell back from the light by the score, and Rhianna roared in warning, so that his people cleared a trail for the prisoners. In seconds they were beyond the wall and off into the brooding pines that surrounded the fortress now, and then Fallion let his brightness fade.

The Light-bringer lives up to his name, Despair thought.

Despair considered going down among the fools, doing battle. He felt no fear of his enemy s champions. The Earth did not warn against it, and he knew that they could not slay his body.

But Fallion had a power that no other flameweaver had ever displayed. He could shine so fiercely that he could slay a locus, incinerate it.

Would the Earth Spirit warn me of such danger? Despair wondered. No, it wouldn t. A locus is not a human. The Earth Spirit would not value its life.

I dare not try to take them alone, he thought. I need Vulgnash.

But Vulgnash was hours away, and his quest was of tremendous import. He had to win control over the blood-metal mines, and until he was finished, he could not be spared nor distracted.

And what harm does it do to let them run? Despair wondered. None of my servants was killed. My enemies only deceive themselves. They believe that they have freed Fallion, not knowing that he can never escape.

The guard had rushed in at Despair s back, and now he begged, "Shall I have men give chase?"

"You can t catch them," Despair said. "And if you did, it is not in your power to take them."

But Despair had a servant who could. He sent a thought to Vulgnash: When you finish punishing my enemies, return with all haste. Bring back some blood-metal ore for forcibles.

"Would you like some help?" Scathain said. "I can have a murder of Darkling Glories here within minutes."

Lord Despair smiled.

"Get them. It s time that these fools get a demonstration of what will come."

The Darkling Glory did not walk back into the tunnel. Instead he leapt from the gargoyle s head and went winging up the mountain, toward the cone of the volcano, where the door to the netherworld stood open.

Despair turned to the captain of the guard. "Tell the tormentors to get to work upon Fallion s Dedicates. I want him reeling in agony."

Just outside the walls of Rugassa, the Emir Tuul Ra halted long enough to steal a vehicle. It was a simple wyrmling handcart-two wheels and a tiny bed, with a couple of long poles to use as handles. The handcart was empty, and the wyrmling woman who was pulling it never knew what hit her. A simple tap from behind sent her sprawling into the dusty road, and the emir had her cart.

The emir knew the wyrmling tongue well. He had not wanted to hurt the woman. There were no words to make apologies in the wyrmling tongue, so he called out, "We have great need. Be well."

He urged Talon to throw Kirissa into the cart, and Rhianna dropped Fallion on the back, and off they went, racing down the road, running at sixty miles an hour.

By the time that the wyrmling woman recovered enough to climb to her feet and hurl some curses at the thieves, the cart was far, far up the road.

Rhianna led the way, clearing the trail before them. The emir pulled the handcart, while Talon pushed it from behind. Daylan Hammer could not match their speed, and so they asked him to jump aboard so that they could make better time.

The green around the fortress had been clogged with wyrmling foresters and hunters, miners, and soldiers, for many in the great horde had come out to work for the night, but it was not yet an hour past dusk, and two miles from the fortress the roads were clear.

So Rhianna, Talon, and the emir ran.

After five miles, they topped a wooded hill and gazed back toward Rugassa. The trees overhead covered the company like a cloak, making them feel warm and safe. The woods were filled with the buzzing of cicadas.

They stopped only for a moment to catch their breath, but the emir felt sorely famished, more than he had ever felt in his life.

He wasn t sure why. Perhaps it was the touch of a wight that had done it. The hurt to his body had been tremendous, but he felt that its touch had even been more devastating to his soul.

Or maybe in part it was simply because he had taken so many endowments of metabolism, and he had been asleep, paralyzed, for hours, after running for hundreds of miles.

"I don t suppose you had the foresight to bring along any food or drink?" the emir asked Rhianna, for the wyrmlings had stolen their packs down in the dungeon.

"Food is for the weak," Rhianna said, then laughed, shaking her head.

She peered back over the road behind them. The great volcano rose up, black and dominating in the distance.

Rhianna had enough endowments of sight so that she could see the road well enough under the starlight.

"There is no sign of pursuit yet," she said after a moment.

"That won t last," Daylan Hammer said with certainty. "We have stolen Lord Despair s prize, and he will spare nothing to retrieve it."

The emir looked to Rhianna, but told Talon, "She should take Fallion to safety. She should leave us. The Knights Eternal will be on our trail all too soon. She ll have a better chance of escaping if we do not slow her down."

"I m surprised that the Knights Eternal are not already in pursuit," Daylan said. "The emir is right. Rhianna should take Fallion and go."

Talon translated for Rhianna.

"Where would you have me take him?" she asked. "Where shall we meet?"

The emir could think of nowhere. There was nowhere in the world that felt safe anymore. Rhianna had mentioned the horse-sisters of Fleeds, but they had little in the way of fortifications.

"We should take him back to the netherworld," the emir said. "If he is to fight Vulgnash, he will need proper endowments, powerful weapons, and time to train."

The emir looked to the others for comments. Rhianna just shrugged, as if the destination did not matter. Talon was willing to concede the argument, for she seemed to have none better of her own. But Daylan Hammer knew the folk of the netherworld better than any of them, so the emir looked to him most of all.

"I do not know," he said. "The Bright Ones understand all too well what kind of danger he will bring. We cannot hide there forever.

"And yet," he continued, "Fallion brings hope with him, and Erringale s folk might easily welcome him.

"I suppose it could not hurt to ask his permission."

That gave them a destination. Erringale and the Wizard Sisel had gone to gaze upon the One True Tree.

At that very moment, lightning flashed in the sky behind them at the crown of the volcano. The emir glanced back and saw a roiling mass of darkness there, obscuring the volcano s crown. It was as if clouds had sprung forth from it in a matter of seconds, and he worried that the volcano was about to blow.

But the clouds were strange in shape-oddly flattened on top, so that they circled the volcano s crown like a great wheel, and the mists that had suddenly risen were rapidly expanding, blotting out the stars. Lightning flashed again and again, sending percussive booms over the land, and from those clouds he could hear strange sounds, peals of evil laughter and terrifying cries.

A bear roared in the forest nearby, and night birds began to peep and call out in terror.