My fear is that they will overwhelm us. I have heard rumors of strange things happening-beasts being brought from shadow worlds, and the coming of Despair. The wyrmlings are more dangerous than you know.'
Kirissa continued, 'But if you can kill a Knight Eternal, if you can strike down their leaders, then there is some hope.'
Kirissa studied the winged woman, her pale red hair and strong cheeks. There was an air of dangerousness about her. She had the taut posture of one who has practiced with the sword for long hours, and the thickness of her thighs, calves, and biceps all bore witness to such labors.
'Do you have a name?' Kirissa asked.
'Rhianna,' the woman said, and Kirissa repeated the name in her mind, over and over.
Rhianna, she thought, my savior.
Rhianna asked her question again, this time speaking in Inkarran. 'Can you draw a map of Rugassa?'
'That would be impossible,' Kirissa said. 'It is said that no one knows the labyrinth in whole-at least not among the common folk. The labyrinth is vast, and there are many passages with many twists and turns. The corridors rise and fall, so that you never know what level you are on. I knew only a small part of it. I could try to make you a map, but I know some passages by their look. If I were to miscount the doors you had to pass to get somewhere, you would be forever lost.'
'Do you know where the wizard Fallion Orden is kept?' Rhianna asked through the interpreter, and there was a depth of longing in her voice.
'He is in the dungeon, in the human wing,' Kirissa said. 'I saw him.'
'Was he alive?'
'Yes,' Kirissa said, 'last that I saw.'
'Do you know where Areth Sul Urstone is kept?'
'I do not know what cell he is kept in.'
'Is he alive?'
'I do not know.'
'Could you lead me to them? Do you know the labyrinth well enough?'
Kirissa pondered. 'No. I was there once, but only once. My tormentor cuffed me unconscious along the way. I don t remember how to reach the dungeons. I m sorry.'
Suddenly Rhianna fell silent, became thoughtful.
Kirissa asked, 'Are you going to free me?'
'If you were free, what would you do?' Rhianna asked.
'Go home,' Kirissa said.
'How could you go,' Rhianna asked, 'knowing what the wyrmling horde is going to do? Would it not be better to fight? You could be a great help to me.'
Kirissa bit her lower lip, and considered. Somehow, in the back of her mind, she d known when she left the keep that it would come to this. The Earth King himself had warned her that this time would come.
'I ll help you,' Kirissa said. 'What will you ask of me?'
Through her interpreter, Rhianna said, 'We are going to rescue Fallion Orden and Areth Sul Urstone.'
Kirissa recalled the guard that she had heard about in Fallion Orden s cell. 'That will be difficult. Vulgnash guards him, and it is rumored that he has taken many endowments.'
'Of course,' Rhianna said, undeterred. 'We anticipate that the wyrmlings will do all within their power to thwart us. But we must try anyway. Will you help us?' she asked. 'You have said that you want to make a better world. This would be a fine place to start.'
'If I go back with you,' Kirissa said, 'my life is over. My only hope for survival is if you grant me endowments.'
Rhianna studied her, eyes narrowing, showing the smallest worry lines. 'Who would grant endowments to a wyrmling?' she asked. 'Perhaps we can find another way…'
In the early afternoon, Rhianna paced through the camp. She felt so strong, so full of energy that she could not hold still. That was part of her problem. But more than anything else, she worried.
Sister Daughtry came and walked beside her. 'You ve heard troubling news?'
Certainly Sister Daughtry had heard everything that Rhianna had. Still, it helped to have someone to talk with.
'If Kirissa is right, there is a new enemy leading the wyrmling horde, one that has gone by many names-the Great Wyrm, Despair, the One True Master of Evil.
'Daylan Hammer and the others need to know this. But there is no way that I can reach them.'
Sister Daughtry s face was an unreadable mask. Rhianna suspected that she was trying hard to hide her own alarm.
'Your friends said that they would make their attack on Rugassa within three days, is that correct?'
'Yes,' Rhianna said. 'But I m worried that they will take too long. Rugassa s new master will need forcibles, thousands and thousands of them.'
'And of course,' Sister Daughtry said, 'the wyrmlings will be out to impress their new master. You said that the wyrmlings can be expected to travel a hundred miles in a night. But your little Kirissa has shown us that a wyrmling can travel by daylight, if the need is strong enough.'
'Exactly,' Rhianna said. 'Daylan Hammer, I m sure, imagined that the wyrmlings would travel only by night. He may be right. The blood metal is so precious, they ll want to have Death Lords and Knights Eternal to guard their caravan, and the Death Lords cannot abide the day.
'But for the sake of haste, the wyrmlings might elect to move the blood metal by air, using their giant graaks. Even a Knight Eternal might carry a few.'
'If you re right,' Sister Daughtry said, 'it might well be that the wyrmlings have already moved some ore, flown it from Caer Luciare to Rugassa.'
'I doubt it,' Rhianna said. 'The wyrmlings took the city at dawn two days ago. I saw no sign of them mining by daylight when we left. That means that they waited until sunset to begin. They would have started digging last night. But the refining process is easy, and it won t take long.
'Blood metal boils at a low heat. You must heat it, stir, let the impurities settle and cool a bit, then pour off the clean metal from the top. Several times, if I recall.'
'Twenty times is best,' Sister Daughtry said. 'Though it can be done fewer.'
'So refining it will still take more than a single night,' Rhianna thought aloud.
Sister Daughtry said, 'They would have taken the ore into the fortress and worked on it throughout the day.'
'That means that their caravan probably did not get on the road until last night, at sunset, at the earliest.'
'If the blood metal was sent by graak,' Sister Daughtry said, 'then it may have already reached Rugassa.'
Rhianna fought back the urge to pace.
'You will not rest until you know where that shipment is,' Sister Daughtry said, giving her a knowing look.
Rhianna did not hesitate. She leapt in the air and took off in a rush of wings, flying toward Rugassa. She was determined to go there first, then trace the route south as she searched for the wyrmling convoy.
With so many endowments of metabolism and brawn, she sped through the air like a bolt. In less than an hour she neared Rugassa. With her endowments of sight, she could see the roads well enough to recognize that there were no convoys traveling in the afternoon sun.
Her only hope was that the convoy was still farther south.
She veered, hurtling along. Her four endowments of metabolism made her swifter than a falcon.
Rhianna skirted above the trees and brush, staying nearly half a mile in the air. Much of the country was lush fields that had gone brown with the summer sun. The intermittent oaks were a dark green.
She found the convoy none too soon. The sun was falling in a red haze.
A giant black graak could be seen ahead, sleeping beside a rocky crag, in the shadows on the northern exposure of a wooded hill. It raised its snake-like neck and peered up into the trees. She could see perhaps a dozen wyrmling guards breaking their camp, some of them hauling chests to load onto the graak while others puttered
