"And if it escapes?"
"Then I will kill the emir myself," Daylan replied.
The emir shook his head in dismay. "I would take my own life, rather than allow a wyrm to have it."
All of them were quiet for a moment. The facilitator seemed unsure. "Help us," Daylan begged Thull-turock. "Help us all create a better world. This is not just about me and you. It is not just a war confined to these few thousand people. Worlds are at stake here. Eternities are at stake. We fight for things beyond your ability to even dream…"
"Is not every war such a war?" Thull-turock asked. "At least, we tell ourselves so."
The men stood a moment, poised in thought.
Talon wondered at the consequences of this public argument. In order to grant endowments to another, it had to be done willingly. But who would give endowments to the Emir Tuul Ra now, knowing what all of them knew? Even if their minds wanted to give up the endowment, the heart would balk.
Daylan Hammer seemed to have won his argument, but he had done so only in appearance.
The emir held his daughter, Siyaddah, trying to comfort her. But it seemed to Talon that the emir was the one who would need comforting. Thull-turock had poisoned the crowd against him.
After a lifetime of proving himself to Talon s people, the emir needed to do so once again.
Siyaddah peered up at the emir and declared loudly. "I want to be first to offer an endowment to my father. I grant you my speed, that you might hurry into battle, if you will take it?"
No daughter had ever broken her father s heart so cruelly. The emir needed endowments. He needed his people to step forward, and by offering her speed, Siyaddah was urging others to follow her example.
At the same time, she was placing herself forever beyond his reach. For once she gave an endowment of metabolism, she would fall into an enchanted slumber, never to waken until he died, or else to die in her sleep.
More than that, she was placing herself beyond the heart of any man. The emir had long hoped that she would marry his closest friend, Areth Sul Urstone. She herself was more interested in Fallion. Now, neither of the men would ever win her heart.
It was a cruel gift to offer, for the emir could not refuse it. He had sworn to save his friend.
"Very well," Erringale said. "It is in the finest tradition of the Ael that those who know the candidate best be first to offer up an endowment. Who else among you will grant this greatest of gifts?"
There was a moment of utter silence as each of the emir s supporters waited for someone else to offer an endowment.
This isn t right, Talon thought. The emir is one of the best swordsmen in the clans, and he is by far the finest strategist. He knows the enemy better than does any other man.
And suddenly, Talon realized how the emir might prove himself to his people once again.
She strode to the emir and slapped his face, hard.
"Emir Tuul Ra," she said, "I challenge you to a duel. I ll fight you for the right to win a place in this rescue party."
11
Power is beautiful, and the Great Wyrm is the most beautiful of us all.
Rhianna saw that the horse-sisters preparation for the raid on the wyrmlings took precedence over all else that night. They immediately went to work setting all in motion for battle. Because Caer Luciare was far away, the first order of business among the sisters was to feed their horses miln, a rich mixture of grain and molasses, to ready them for the long run.
Then the sisters began to pack, taking only light weapons and armor. That decision alone astonished Rhianna. To fight a wyrmling was an act of courage. To fight one in nothing but a horse-sister s leather jerkin was heroic.
Meanwhile, facilitators, smiths, and jewelers began making forcibles-recasting each metal rod with the proper rune at its tip, and then filing and hammering the soft blood metal into shape.
Once each forcible was deemed usable, the facilitators could transfer endowments from one horse to another-giving each horse two endowments of metabolism, one of brawn, and one of stamina.
The smiths worked fast, far faster than the men of Caer Luciare had been able to. In part they sped along because they knew how to make forcibles. It was an ancient art here. In part they worked quickly because the women s small hands and nimble fingers found it easier to do the work. In part they flew through the work because the master craftsmen each first took endowments of metabolism. Thus, they hoped to accomplish in one day what might otherwise have taken weeks.
The making of force horses would prove to be their greatest problem, Rhianna knew. It was a time-consuming process.
With horses, an endowment could only be transferred to the leader of a herd, whether it be a stallion or a mare.
Thus, creating a force horse sounded as if it should be easy. You could just cut the leader from the herd, and then draw endowments from the colts above one year of age.
But it wasn t so easy as all of that. You didn t want to take endowments from just any colt. For brawn, you might want a heavy war horse, perhaps one of the imperial breed. For speed, a racehorse from the desert. For stamina, a simple workhorse might do, though mules were sometimes used. For wit, there was a breed called the Carther Mountain ponies.
And so before the facilitators could endow a horse, they had to take the strongest adults, horses two years or a bit above of age, and corral them with five or six others, creating a small herd, and then give the animals a day to fight.
Once a herd leader emerged, the endowments could be stripped from the others.
By dusk, Rhianna hoped, the first forty force horses would be ready to go.
But humans were not so finicky when it came to granting endowments, and before dawn a facilitator came to Rhianna s tent. She was a small woman with dark hair, in costly attire.
"We are ready for the ceremony," she said. "Which endowment would you like first?"
Rhianna hadn t given it much thought. Brawn, she wondered. Or speed.
In that moment s hesitation, the facilitator made up Rhianna s mind for her. "Glamour," she said. "When creating a powerful Runelord, the first few should always be glamour-and then voice. It makes it easier for others to give their endowments to those that they love, and you will be stronger for it in the long run."
Rhianna s heart skipped a beat at the thought. Glamour. Raj Ahten had been rich with it, so rich that women who should have hated him were filled with lust, and would spread their legs for him. Men who saw him imagined that there could be no maliciousness in him.
"When you see the face of pure evil," an old saying went, "it will be beautiful."
Rhianna wanted to be beautiful, as fair as a summer morn, as powerful as a tempest. She had heard of Raj Ahten s wife Saffira, with hundreds of endowments of glamour. No man could resist her. To look upon her made men weak with desire.
Fallion will love me, Rhianna thought. I can make him love me more than he could ever imagine.
And as quickly as the thought came, she repented of it, trying to force the selfish desire away.
"Glamour," she confirmed.
The endowment ceremony took place in Sister Daughtry s pavilion, with Rhianna and her new Dedicate resting among plush cushions.
Her first Dedicate was a young girl, perhaps no more than sixteen. In the blush of youth, her eyes were bright and her skin as white as cream.
"In giving this gift," she said, looking noble and tragic, "I honor you, and I give myself for my land. Use my gift well, milady."
The girl s courtly mannerisms were overstated. She tried to look brave, but she was trembling in fear.
"Be of comfort," Rhianna said. "Your gift does you honor. I promise to engage it in the service of our people, and I will remember always this covenant between us."