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.
