Alun only held still at her back, the gawking lad who had been willing to sell his people out for nothing more than a title. Madoc wasn’t worried about him.
But suddenly the boy hissed a command, “Kill,” and unleashed his war dog. The beast leapt at Madoc in a snarling ball of fury, going for Madoc’s throat.
Madoc brought his ax up, hoping to fend the dog off, and stepped backward, just as something sharp rammed into his back.
He peered down and saw a dagger there just below his kidney. Rhianna’s small, pale hand gripped it. With a grunt she twisted the blade and brought it up in an expert maneuver, slicing his kidney in half. White-hot pain blinded Madoc.
He did not have time to cry out before Siyaddah slammed into his chest and sent him tumbling over the parapet.
Rhianna dropped and knelt in shock.
She crawled to the end of the balcony, her arms shaking, her legs and knees feeling frail. She climbed the balcony wall and peered over the parapet, into the starlight, and far in the distance, she saw leathery wings flapping madly. The morning air was beginning to brighten, dulling the stars. The Knight Eternal was carrying Fallion away in a frenzied blur, like some great bat.
He has endowments of strength and speed, Rhianna realized. He’s flying faster than I ever can. Her arms trembled as they tried to bear her weight. Her stomach was turning, and she felt ill, on the verge of collapse.
How fast is he going? she wondered. A hundred miles per hour, two? How far will he get before dawn? Will he reach Rugassa?
She’d barely been able to manage the flight to the parapet a few minutes ago. And in her current condition, she couldn’t manage even that. Even if she had been able catch up with Fallion’s captor, she was no match for him.
He’s gone, she realized. Fallion’s gone. Maybe forever.
Rhianna looked down, her heart breaking. She saw Madoc’s form sprawled on the pavement hundreds of feet below, broken, ringed by wyrmlings who hacked and stabbed at the corpse, making sure of it.
She turned back to her friends. The parapet was a grisly mess. Talon was out cold. Rhianna could see that she was breathing steadily, but though Rhianna crawled to her side and called her name, Talon would not wake.
Siyaddah went to High King Urstone and stood over him for a long moment, seeking signs of life. She studied his face, then leaned over his back, trying to hear his heartbeat through his armor. At last she put her silver buckler to his face to see if he was breathing.
After a moment, she let out a sad cry and tears rolled down her cheek.
“He’s dead,” she moaned in dismay. “He’s dead.”
Rhianna could not speak to Siyaddah or Alun, for she did not know their language.
Down below, the wyrmling hordes still filled the courtyard. The army did not surge forward into the tunnels, nor did they fall back. Instead, they merely waited, as if for some further command.
Rhianna reached up and felt the knot at the base of her skull, smeared with blood. She could hardly think.
Footsteps came echoing up from the tunnel, and Daylan Hammer appeared around a bend, bearing a thumb- lantern.
He rushed up, spoke softly to Alun and Siyaddah for a moment.
“So is it true that they have Fallion?” Daylan asked Rhianna.
“Yes,” she said, looking back. Vulgnash was gone, far from her sight.
Daylan peered into the sky for a long moment, as if he could see what Rhianna could not. He was a Bright One of the netherworld, and as such, his powers of sight were legendary.
“Yes,” Daylan said at last. “He is gone…far beyond our reach-for now.”
He peered down at the armies massed before the gate, and said, “I wonder what they’re waiting for. The sun is coming. Surely they must be eager to take the city before dawn?”
He studied the army for a moment longer, then shouted, “Quickly, we must get down into the tunnels. There is one great battle left to fight!”
“When next you sleep…” Daylan Hammer had said. The words rolled over and over in Fallion’s mind, “When next you sleep…”
What had Daylan commanded?
That I dream, Fallion recalled dimly.
He was lying in the arms of a giant, flying through air both thin and cold. He could hear wings flapping, but he was so far under, he could not even open his eyes to look.
In a stupor, he reached up and grasped his cape pin, and immediately was thrust into another world. Here the skies were bluer than the darkest sapphire, and oak trees rose up like mountains among the hills, as if to bear heaven upon their limbs. Fallion was standing in a field of wheat that rose up to his chest, and an enormous owl came to him with broad wings and spoke an ancient name, Ael.
For the first time, Fallion realized that it was a question.
Yes, Fallion answered, I am Ael.
Fallion climbed its back, and as the great owl flew through a world that was now only a remembered dream, soaring over crystal lakes, swooping up to climb tall mountains whose skirts were covered with evergreens and whose mantles were draped in snow, finally to make his way at the end of the day toward a vast tree whose branches were filled with lights, Fallion began to recall.
I know that tree, Fallion thought. Its limbs and trunk were golden. Its broad leaves were dark green on the top, almost black in the failing light, but brighter underneath. He could hear the voices of women and children singing beneath the One True Tree, singing in a strange tongue that even his spirit had almost forgotten.
And the memories came. He had lived beneath the boughs of that tree once, had lived there for ages, in a city dug beneath its roots. And in its shade he had helped to maintain the great runes.
He remembered standing there, tending the runes hour after hour. His was the Seal of Light, a great circle of golden fire that bound the Seal of Heaven to the Seals of Earth and Water.
He knew its every texture and nuance, for over countless ages he had not only nurtured it, but with the help of the tree had formed it.
Now in his memory he stood above it, tending the multitude of tiny flames within it.
“Careful,” a still voice whispered in his mind. “The passions in that one are too strong. She must be mellowed.” It was the voice of the One True Tree, his companion and mentor, his helper in this great endeavor.
Fallion had turned his attention to the flame in question. It represented a young woman, one whose passions often rose high.
“Light-bringer,” a woman’s voice called. “What are you doing?”
Fallion turned and saw a beautiful young woman with raven hair and sparkling eyes. It was Yaleen, the woman whose passions he needed to soothe.
She strode toward him like a panther, like a huntress, her movements liquid and powerful…
And as Fallion’s body slumbered, and Vulgnash bore him to Rugassa, Fallion’s spirit began to wake.
A BARGAIN MADE TO BE BROKEN
Every man is but half a creature, longing to be whole. It is not until a wyrm fills your soul that you become complete.
