beams of sunlight from every pore. His endowments of brawn were so great that he felt as if he was hardly touching the floor. His own weight seemed insignificant, as if he floated above the ground instead of walking. It was all that he could do to restrain himself, to keep from running.
Scathain followed at his side, walking in a hunched manner. Lord Despair said, 'The attackers will come down this very tunnel.'
'How can you be certain?' Scathain asked.
'My Earth Powers,' Despair said. 'Some of my chosen servants are down the corridor. I sense the danger coming.'
Lord Despair could see the attackers path in his mind s eye. They would leave a trail of dead-all the way down to the dungeons, if he did not stop them.
'Yes, they will come,' Despair said, his anticipation rising pleasurably.
'Would you like me to deal with them?' Scathain asked.
'No. My wyrmlings will handle the intruders.'
'Yes, Great One,' Scathain said. Despite his size, the Darkling Glory walked lightly.
Despair had ordered a certain member of the High Council to watch the southern passage. That was how he knew exactly where the enemy would enter. He could feel death approaching the fool. But Despair dared not use his Earth Powers to warn him. If the wyrmling lord warned others, it could cause a panic. People would flee, defenders might gather. Despair could not allow that. The enemy could not suspect that he had set a trap.
But what is the source of the attack? he wondered. Most likely it was humans, since they were attacking in the early afternoon, when the sun was the brightest.
It could be the Fang Guards coming from Caer Luciare, he decided. But wyrmlings would traditionally travel at night. Still, he supposed, if it were members of the Fang Guard, they might have taken enough endowments of stamina to resist the sun s burning powers.
But something else came to mind. What if the Fang Guards had discovered some other way to abide the daylight?
What would happen, Lord Despair wondered, if a wyrmling took an endowment of sight from a normal human? Would he suddenly be able to withstand sunlight better?
What a fearsome thing that would be, Despair considered-a wyrmling that can abide the light.
He sent a guard to tell his facilitators to test the theory.
Or perhaps, he wondered, it is neither the folk from Caer Luciare nor the Fang Guards. His warriors had been harrying the small folk on his borders now for three nights running. Perhaps some of the small folk had found some blood-metal ore and taken endowments. Perhaps it was a contingent of these that were coming, a band of Runelords who planned an attack for reasons of their own.
He was so in tune with the Earth Powers, he could almost count the seconds until the attack. It would come at the southern gate, in only a few moments.
Running now, Lord Despair charged up the stairs to his chambers, three steps at a time, until he found himself in his rooms. He went to his parapet, and crouched there in the shadows in his black robes beside the gargoyles, watching to see what enemy would come.
Scathain raced up to his side, and knelt like a great black gargoyle himself.
The sun stood still in the sky, and the air was almost perfectly calm. Only the slightest afternoon breeze played across his brow.
With his endowments of hearing, birdsong seemed to rise in a chorus from the forest in every direction-the cooing of wild pigeons, the ratcheting of jays, the chirps of songbirds.
The plains before the gates of Rugassa were empty now.
In the nights, the fields would come alive as his minions toiled by the tens of thousands, a dark mass of wyrmlings coming to feed the city: huntsmen bringing in handcarts piled with carcasses to feed the empire; skirmishers leading bands of small folk in chains, to be stripped of endowments; woodsmen tugging carts filled with cordwood for the cooking fires; wyrmlings bringing animal skins for clothes, and ingots of iron from the mines, and all other manner of goods.
In such a throng, it would have been difficult to spot intruders. They might have hidden among carts or worn disguises.
But the plains were empty now.
Despair saw no armies in the distance. With a dozen endowments of sight taken both from wyrmlings and from the small folk, he would have spotted them across the miles.
Yet alarms blared in Despair s mind. 'Death is coming. Tell your chosen one to flee.'
At last something caught his eye on the horizon to the south: a flash of red in a shaft of light-the crimson robes of a Knight Eternal.
It was hastening toward the fortress, flying low through the pine trees that ran along the road.
Kryssidia? Lord Despair wondered. What is he doing out?
The Knight Eternal that flew toward the castle had endowments, it was obvious. He was flying at tremendous speed, perhaps two hundred miles per hour, making toward the southern entrances.
'Flee,' the Earth Spirit said. 'Warn your chosen to flee. Death is coming.'
Could it be Kryssidia? Despair wondered. Dismay filled him. If his Knights Eternal were to turn against him…
Then he spotted movement in the distance-too far for the city guard to see. But a handful of warriors was also racing toward Rugassa in the midday sun.
Humans. So, the heroes had come to rescue Fallion.
Death was imminent for the High Council member at the south gate. The Earth Spirit seemed almost to be thundering in his ears. The attackers on the ground were still miles away when the Earth screamed its final warning, and it took a great of amount of discipline for Lord Despair to withhold aid.
So the flier is just the vanguard, Despair realized.
Kryssidia would not be in league with humans.
It is one of them-a human with stolen wings and a Knight Eternal s robes.
'The flier is one of the attackers,' Despair told the Darkling Glory. 'But others are following.'
'The enemy flies swiftly and well,' the Darkling Glory said. 'I would be honored to fight that one.'
Despair smiled.
When death came to the High Councilman, Despair felt a cruel sense of loss, as if his very heart was torn from him. It was the Earth Spirit, punishing him for allowing the murder. Any other man would have crumbled to the floor and wept bitter tears, so overwhelming was the loss.
But Despair simply whispered to the Earth, 'Patience, my dear friend, patience. The one who died was a fool, and therefore worthless to me. I repent that I ever chose him. But I have others that I value more.'
The Earth did not answer. Despair felt its spirit withdraw, and worried that it might flee him forever.
'We must hurry,' Despair said to the Darkling Glory. 'I have prepared a most special welcome for our guests.'
Talon ran through the forest toward Rugassa, heart pounding, and watched for Rhianna s signal. Talon was still two miles out from the city, probably too far for the wyrmling guards to see. But she felt exposed here. The black volcano rose up from the plains, looming above her. As she drew nearer she could descry thousands of dark holes in the basalt, windows and air vents for the wyrmling labyrinth. And at each one, she knew cruel eyes might be watching.
Rhianna had hardly touched down in the tunnel when her signal came-three bright flashes from a sunstone at the mouth of the tunnel.
She had taken out the guards.
Now the race began in earnest. The Cormar twins led the way, giggling at some private joke, followed next by Daylan Hammer, the Emir Tuul Ra, and last of all by Talon.
Each of them had copious endowments of metabolism; now the Cormar twins sprinted at breakneck speed, matching each other stride for stride, fifty miles per hour, sixty.
They raced under the pines, through the shadows thrown by the midday sun.
Even a wyrmling can t see us yet, Talon thought. The sun is in their eyes, and we are all in shadow.
So she tried to comfort herself with reassurances of her own lack of visibility until at last the comrades exited
