Now, in triumph, Yaleen raised his left hand and peered down upon the wyrmling hosts that prostrated themselves. “I choose you,” he shouted, his commanding voice echoing through the stone chambers. “I choose you for the twisted Earth.”
He felt a connection establish between himself and his acolytes, like an invisible thread that bound him to each and every soul in the room. He would know where they were at all times. He would sense when they were in danger and he would utter the warnings that would spare their lives.
Thus, his armies would sweep across the worlds, destroying everyone who opposed him.
In Caer Luciare, thousands of women and children gathered at the eastern edge of the city, filling every room and every tunnel. They stood silently, straining to hear. The terror in the tunnels was palpable, and lay thick in their throats. Some of the children whimpered.
With a roar, the wyrmling troops flooded into the warrens, their Death Lord leading the way.
Inside the city, dark as a tomb, the floors rumbled beneath iron-shod feet, and wyrmling cries shattered the stillness.
“They are coming!” guards shouted down the corridors, each man gripping his weapon, falling back behind the Wizard Sisel. The warrior clans stood ready to oppose the enemy for as long as possible.
Siyaddah looked toward her father. At her side, her father placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
The city’s long war with the wyrmlings was over, and the men of Luciare had lost.
The wizard glanced down the halls one last time. He waited for long and long, until the wyrmlings could be seen down the corridor, the lights winking out before them. A dark, nebulous form floated ahead-the Death Lord, eager to feed.
The guards backed off, leaving Sisel alone to bar the way. The Earth Warden raised his staff protectively, singing an incantation so softly that Siyaddah could not hear his words.
At Sisel’s back, the people huddled.
“Fear not,” Siyaddah’s father called out. “The Death Lord feeds on fear.” His command was fruitless. The women and the children still sobbed. But it gave them some comfort to hear from a warlord, particularly one of her father’s stature. With Madoc and High King Urstone both dead, the warriors would be confused as to whom to follow. Had one of Madoc’s foolish sons had the wits, he would have stepped into the breach and taken command. But Siyaddah’s father was filling that void.
Lights winked out in the darkened corridor as the Death Lord drew near.
The Wizard Sisel raised his staff, as if welcoming the creature to battle. “So, my old friend,” Sisel said, “you come to me at last.”
“We were never friends,” the Death Lord whispered.
“You were my master,” Sisel said. “I loved you as a friend. My respect for you never languished. My faithfulness never faltered. It was you who faltered…”
“Do you expect a reward?” the Death Lord demanded. “I have little to offer.”
Siyaddah breathed, and the breath steamed from her throat. The walls of the cavern had suddenly grown icy, rimed with frost. Already, the Death Lord was leeching the life from the seeds and herbs here.
“Come then,” the Wizard Sisel said, “and give me what you can.”
With a cry like wind screaming among the rocky crags of some mountain cavern, the Death Lord came, rushing toward Sisel.
Wyrmlings by the dozens followed in its wake.
The wizard stood calmly as if waiting, and as the Death Lord neared, he swung his staff.
But he swung too early. The Death Lord was still at least a pace away.
The dark specter halted for half an instant as the wizard’s swing went wide.
He missed! Siyaddah realized, fear rising up in her throat.
Then the staff struck the wall. Rocks and dirt exploded outward by the ton, and a crude opening gaped wide.
Beyond the fissure, dawn light was beginning to fill the skies. The rising sun rimmed the horizon in shades of pink, as was befitting a perfect summer morn.
At the touch of the sunlight, the Death Lord shrieked, and for an instant it seemed that the shadow gained more substance, becoming a creature of flesh. She could see a man, like her, not a wyrmling. His face was lined with countless crags, as if he had aged and aged for a thousand years. His eyes were a sickly yellow, and his silver hair hung as limp as cobwebs.
He held up his hands, as if seeing them for the first time in centuries, and shrieked in terror.
His hand looked like ragged paper, torn and aged. But it was thin and insubstantial, a ragged leathery covering wrapped over a hollow spirit.
At that instant, the Wizard Sisel swung his staff again, catching the Death Lord with a backswing, and its dusky form exploded into a cloud of dust.
Confronted by the sunlight, stunned by the loss of their master, the wyrmlings shrieked in pain and horror as the warriors of Luciare plunged into their ranks.
“Hold them back!” Siyaddah’s father shouted at the guards, racing into the fray. “Hold them back.”
“Go, now!” Sisel cried to the people. “Run while you can!”
Suddenly, hundreds of soldiers began shouting, “Flee, this way! Run!”
Already there were crowds shoving at the wizard’s back, trying to make their way into the light. Siyaddah found herself being pushed forward. She longed to stay with her father, fight at his side, but she was like a leaf carried by a stream, out through the tunnel.
In a moment she found herself at the lip of a precipice. The sides of the hill fell away steeply below, but not so steeply that one could not climb down with care.
She did not go with care. Someone shoved her from behind, so that she went sliding and tumbling in the scree. She managed to grasp onto a small tree and pull herself upright.
People were falling behind her, rolling down the hill, like an avalanche of flesh. Siyaddah got her footing and darted from their path, angling down and away from the steady stream of humanity.
The sun crested a tree, and its light struck Siyaddah full in the face.
I made it, she thought in wonder. I’m alive!
Far away, Vulgnash raced through the sky, winging just above the treetops of a great pine forest, racing from the rising sun. He used his flameweaver’s skills to draw the light into him, so that he was but a shadow in the pre- dawn. But it wasn’t enough.
The light blinded him and pained him. He roared in frustration as he dove beneath the trees, seeking the shadows of the forest, and perhaps some cave to hide in from the coming day.
In a daze, Fallion heard the roars and for a long moment struggled to regain consciousness. His eyes opened, and he strained to peer upward, saw the monster that held him as if he were a slumbering child.
The Knight Eternal.
He’s taking me away, Fallion realized. He’s taking me to Rugassa, where he hopes to break me.
But Fallion knew something that his captor could not. He remembered now, his life from before.
I am eternal, he realized. They can kill me, and I will come back. They can beat me, and I will heal.
But I will not break. How can I, knowing how much the world depends on me?
The sleeper had awoken.
Fallion felt the heat all around him. He reached out stealthily with his mind, sought to grasp it.
Instantly, Vulgnash felt the touch, and drew heat from Fallion, slamming him back into unconsciousness.
But Vulgnash looked down at the small one, this young wizard, and felt alarmed.
In his pain and fatigue, Vulgnash had nearly missed Fallion’s probe. In another hundredth of a second, the boy could have sucked the heat from the air and made his attack.
Lady Despair was watching. Vulgnash felt the touch of his master. “Careful, my pet,” Lady Despair whispered. “I need the boy. I need him, though he can destroy us. You must be ever vigilant.”
“Fear not,” Vulgnash whispered as he stepped into the deep shadows thrown by the pines. “I will serve you perfectly, as always.”
