Like dogs, Rhianna realized. The wyrmlings are like dogs peeing on trees and bushes. There is some inner dictum that forces them to mar or destroy the lands that they take.
But it was more than just the paintings that adorned the places. The carnage looked worse than she remembered. It wasn t just the new damage to structures or the sickening graffiti. The wyrmlings had not yet begun to reclaim their dead after the battle, so now their white corpses lay strewn about, stomachs bloating and festering, oozing foul smells that rose up on the thermals. With her endowments of scent, the odors seemed overwhelming.
The dead were not just part of the decor, she realized, they were the centerpiece.
Rhianna dropped to the ledge of a lower wall, near where Jaz had died. She saw bloodstains on the cobblestones that might have been his. His body lay hacked and ruined.
My brother, she thought, look what they ve done to him.
She did not care if the wyrmlings saw her there. She suspected that some were watching from Caer Luciare, from the dark corridors. Certainly there were enough spy holes in the place. But none would dare issue forth in this blazing sun to test her prowess in battle. And if they did, she would be happy to show them a thing or two.
So she stood for a long moment, weeping above Jaz s corpse. "The wyrmlings have a lot to answer for," she said to him. "And I shall make them pay."
But first, she thought, I need a weapon that will kill a Death Lord.
That was what she had come for. She had lost her staff while fighting against Vulgnash, the staff that the Wizard Binnesman had inscribed with runes and magic stones for the Earth King Gaborn Val Orden.
Vulgnash s endowments of metabolism had been too much for Rhianna to overcome. She hadn t been able to even come close to hitting him. And after the folk of Caer Luciare had fled, she d been afraid to return for the staff.
But now she was ready to meet Vulgnash once again.
She turned and flew to the upper wall, where Fallion had taken his wound, and where she had slain a Knight Eternal. She found the mummified corpse still lying on the ground, its crimson robes draped about it. Rhianna kicked the corpse over. Carrion beetles crawled about underneath it, went blindly scattering this way and that, seeking to escape the sunlight.
Rhianna separated the robe from the corpse.
Odd, she thought, that the wyrmlings haven t scavenged from their own dead.
But then she began to wonder. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps it wasn t out of laziness that the wyrmlings had left their dead on the battlefield untouched-but more out of respect.
These wyrmlings had died on the field of honor, and now it appeared that they would remain-in some sort of macabre memorial.
Rhianna had heard of people in Indhopal who would not touch their dead for three days, as a token of respect.
It might only be something like that, she thought.
She threw off her own robe and draped herself in the cowled bloody red robes of a Knight Eternal.
Flying fast, she wouldn t be distinguishable from one of them.
She flew to the base of the mountain, beneath the parapet where Warlord Madoc had fallen.
The Earth King s staff should be near here, she thought. But she could not find it. Warlord Madoc lay dead and broken upon a rock, his back arched painfully, arms spread wide, his dead eyes gazing up into the sun.
But Rhianna couldn t see the staff.
She hoped that wyrmlings had not defiled the weapon, as they had the buildings. She knew that the Death Lords had tried to curse the weapon, destroy it that way.
But after several seconds, she could not see it.
There were a number of large rocks here, scree from the tunneling in the mountain up above.
Perhaps, she thought, it has fallen under the rubble where I cannot see it. She began to peer around, peeking down under the shadows.
Just then, she heard a noise above. She glanced up to see a large boulder bouncing down from a parapet. She leapt aside as it slammed into the ground, then went bouncing away.
Perhaps the sun is not as great a deterrent as I d imagined, Rhianna thought.
She heard the gruff laugh of a wyrmling coming from somewhere far up the mountain, drifting down. He called out a taunt.
She did not need a translator. The tone said it alclass="underline" I know what you re looking for. Come and get it if you dare.
Suddenly, she realized how dangerous that just might be.
The wyrmlings have had a night to dig up ore from the mountain, and two full days to refine it and take endowments. Surely they have done so by now.
Their taunts are not idle threats.
Rhianna leapt up and flew away.
I will have to go to Rugassa without my staff, she realized.
16
Trust not in your own arms, but in the Great Wyrm. No chick falls from its nest without the Wyrm s knowledge. How much more then does the Great Wyrm know your needs. It alone knows all, and has all power.
Lord Despair was impatiently touring his armory when his Knights Eternal returned that morning, three hours after sunrise.
He was studying the wyrmling weapons mounted on the walls-axes for chopping, hooks for grabbing one s prey, battle darts in various weights and sizes, war bows and spears. All of them were overlarge for a human.
But Despair wasn t interested in weapons for humans. The Emperor Zul-torac had opened a door to the netherworld, and now the Thissians were negotiating with a murder of Darkling Glories. The Darkling Glories normally hunted with only teeth and talons, but Despair felt that they might benefit from wyrmling technology.
All day, his unease had been building, like the static that builds before a storm, waiting to be unleashed. He wanted to know what was happening at Caer Luciare. He wanted his shipment of forcibles. Three days ago, it would have been no small thing to look into the mind of his Death Lord and learn what was going on in Luciare. But now his Death Lord there was gone, and Lord Despair had no idea which of his warlords now ruled in Caer Luciare.
The Knights Eternal stopped outside the armory, and both of them hesitated at the door.
They looked haggard, bleary-eyed.
"Yes," Despair demanded. "What word do you have of my forcibles?"
The Knights Eternal cringed, a rare thing. Their kind were usually fearless. Lord Despair knew instantly that the news would not be just bad, it would be horrific.
"We have returned from Caer Luciare, and the news is not favorable," Kryssidia said. "But we have brought a gift of blood metal, in hopes of turning aside your wrath."
The Knights Eternal each dropped a heavy black sack at their feet, and pushed it forward. By the size, it had to represent a hundred pounds of blood metal, perhaps enough to make a thousand forcibles.
I shall have to send it to my facilitators immediately, Lord Despair thought. A thousand endowments will give me the strength I need to resist the coming attack.
Inside, something eased. The Earth s warning was not as persistent. But it was still there.
"Your gift is appreciated," he said, turning away from the wall of weapons and drawing closer. "Now, tell me of the ill news."
Kryssidia knelt. "Master, your warriors at Caer Luciare have discovered the pleasures afforded by the forcibles. The Fang Guard have taken over the fortress, and they are taking endowments from many warriors. The place is filled with carnage, with fallen warriors strewn about by the thousands. They have not been felled by axes-but with forcibles.
"The Fang Guards imagine that they are a great nation, and that Caer Luciare now rivals Rugassa in power. We demanded forcibles, but their leader, Chulspeth, brandished a weapon from the small folk at us-a powerful staff filled with runes-and said, Tell your emperor that I have sent him all of the forcibles he will get. We have taken many endowments, and we have a weapon now that will kill the Death Lords. Tell him to surrender. If he wants to live, he will do so under my rule. Tell him to come himself-and grovel before me. Perhaps I will let him lick my boots." Kryssidia added. "Since they would not give us forcibles, we dug some blood metal ourselves."