Daylan Hammer reached the top. The roof had caved in ages ago, and so the immortal merely balanced upon the narrow rock wall. After a moment, he took off his cape and threw it to the ground, then unsheathed his war hammer and let it fall, too.
He relaxed for a long moment, shook out his auburn hair, and just stood, gazing up toward the sun, as if taking his rest, daydreaming.
Daylan Hammer looked like a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties. He was short of stature, even among the poorly bred, but of course was dwarfed by those of the warrior caste. He had a weathered face, his beard cut short. But there was agelessness to his blue eyes, as if he had seen far too many horrors and had loved far too often and had grown weary of life.
Alun wondered what the immortal dreamed about. Perhaps, he imagined, Daylan Hammer had been in love with one of the beauties whose image was housed inside. Perhaps he comes here only to mourn her.
As minutes stretched into hours, Wanderlust grew bored of the watch, and soon lay in the shadows of the evergreen, snoring. As the sun began to drop toward the horizon, Alun fell to dreaming himself. There was a chance that he could be freed. And he began to think about what that would mean.
Wanderlust whimpered in her sleep. Her paws were in the air, and she waved them just a little. Dreaming of the hunt, of rabbits or harts, Alun figured from her smile.
He could understand dogs. Their body language spoke volumes. Not like women. You can look at a pretty lass and never have an idea what she is thinking, if she is thinking at all.
Alun didn’t have a lover, had never even kissed a girl. He had once approached Gil the fishmonger and asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage, but the man had laughed in his face. “What? An oaf who stinks of dogs wants to marry my daughter what stinks of fish? What malodorous little tadpoles you would spawn!”
The fishmonger’s daughter was nice to look at. She had long brown hair and eyes as solemn as an old hound’s. And she didn’t talk much. That was a fine trait, in Alun’s estimation. He had been teased rudely as a child, and couldn’t bear the presence of gossips or scolds.
Once I become a clansman, he imagined, Gil will bring his daughter by the hand and beg me to marry her.
And what will I say?
“What, you want me to marry your daughter what stinks of fish?”
He’d laugh and turn the man out.
And then I’ll be alone again, he thought.
So if not the fishmonger’s daughter, who will I marry?
There were plenty to choose from-daughters of old warlords who were penniless, daughters of wealthy merchants who would hope to add a title to their fortunes.
Why not marry the best? he wondered.
And suddenly he dared imagine the impossible.
The best. The best would be well bred and wealthy. She would be beautiful to look upon, but she would also be generous and good of heart. She would love him, and not disrespect him for coming from a low breed.
A young woman came to mind. He had never thought of her before, not in that way. Her exalted station had been too far above his. Her name was Siyaddah, and her father was the Emir of Dalharristan.
She had spoken to Alun often, for as a young woman she had loved to come to the kennels and play with the new pups, petting them and bringing scraps from the kitchens and bones for the pups to wrestle over.
Siyaddah had the brownest eyes, almost as black as her hair. They sparkled when she laughed, and her skin was dark and silky.
She had always treated Alun as more than a slave. She had laughed with him as if he were a friend, and once she even laid her hand upon his arm; highborn women almost never did that. He had wondered if she had feelings for him.
Once my rank is secure, Alun thought, I could ask her father for her hand in marriage. He won’t go for it. But if he said no, what would I have lost?
He strongly doubted that the Emir would say yes. There were rumors that he was saving his daughter, that he hoped to marry her to High King Urstone’s son.
Alun thought, But that will never hap-
A huge shadow fell over him, followed by the pounding of heavy wings. Alun’s heart leapt in his chest. He suddenly felt as a mouse must feel when touched by the shadow of the hawk.
He peered up in terror and saw some beast. It wasn’t a drake. This thing had vast translucent wings of palest gold that rippled in the air like sheets moved by the wind.
A wyrmling Seccath! Alun thought, fear rising in his throat. Alun had seen a Seccath only once, nine years ago, when he was but a boy. The High King himself had captured it and brought it to Castle Luciare, where it was stripped of its wings and held prisoner deep in the dungeons, even to this day.
The Seccath winged its way straight toward Daylan Hammer, and Alun had the forethought to realize that the immortal had no weapon to protect him.
Just as Alun was about to shout a warning, the Seccath folded its wings and dropped to the tower wall, opposite from Daylan Hammer.
“Well met,” Daylan Hammer said.
The wyrmling settled onto the wall. She was a pale-eyed woman with blond hair shaved short and with huge bones. Her neck and forehead were tattooed with cruel glyphs, prayers to Lady Despair. There was no beauty in her that Daylan could see, unless one considered that brutality could be considered comely.
Not for the first time, Daylan considered how decency and innocence were inextricably mingled with a human’s concept of beauty. On almost every world he had visited, in any nation, a person whose face was smooth, childlike-innocent, and compassionate-was considered more beautiful than one who was not. Not so among the wyrmlings.
Indeed, it was believed that the wyrmlings’ ancestors had been human, but they had been bred for war over so many generations that they had evolved into something else. So there was an inbred cruelty and wariness to the woman-a rough and hawkish face, a scowl to the mouth, blazing eyes, and a wary stance, as if she only hoped for a chance to gut him.
Her artificial wings folded around her now, making her look as if she were draped in translucent yellow robes. Behind her, the dying sun hung just above the horizon like a bloody eye.
The wyrmling peered at Daylan, cold and mocking in her rage. The wyrmlings could not abide light. It pained their eyes and burned their skin.
Humans feared the darkness, and so they had agreed to meet here now, in the half-light.
The sight of her sent a shudder through Daylan. Thoughts of compassion, honor, decency-all were alien to her, incomprehensible. The maggot that infected her soul saw to that.
“Well met?” she asked, as if trying to make sense of the greeting. “Why would it be well to meet me? Your body trembles. It knows the gaze of a predator when it sees it. Yet you think it well to meet me?”
Daylan chuckled. “It is only a common greeting among my people.”
“Is it?” the wyrmling demanded, as if he lied.
“So,” Daylan said, “you asked for proof that your princess is still alive.”
“Can you name the day she drew her first blood?”
It was a difficult question, Daylan knew. The wyrmlings kept great beasts to use in times of war-the world wyrms. Among wyrmlings, time was measured in “rounds” which lasted for three years-the length of time that it took between breeding cycles for a female wyrm. Each day in a round had its own name. Thus, there were over a thousand days in a round, and if Daylan had to lie, he would have had a slim chance of guessing the right day.
“Princess Kan-hazur says that she drew first blood upon the day of Bitter Moon.” That was all that he needed to say, but he wanted to offer ample proof. “It was in the two hundred and third year of the reign of the Dread Emperor Zul-torac. She fought in the Vale of Pearls against the he-beast Nezyallah, and broke his neck with her club.”
Daylan knew a bit about politics among wyrmlings. As he understood it, the “he-beast” was in fact the Princess’s own older brother. He would have been larger and stronger than her, but the princess claimed that her brother was also less violent, and therefore less “able to lead,” by wyrmling standards.
