by Ed Greenwood
He looked down at the baron, who nodded and said, "Deldragon, you are a decent man."
"Galath demands, Darl. Galath demands."
The velduke watched horses being brought to Rod and Taeauna, and Deldragon knights assisting them to mount by cupping gauntlets around their boots and through sheer strength lifting them up onto their horses. Deldragon nodded, let his own restive mount trot in a tight circle, and came back to Tindror to murmur, "You're sure you'd not want to feast tonight in Bowrock? Natha would be glad to see you, and Laranna, too!"
Baron Tindror stared up at him. "Tempting. Thanks. I find myself strong enough to stay. Where I belong."
Deldragon inclined his head. "Darl, you're a decent man, too. Fare you well, in the days ahead; they bid fair to test us all." He looked across the churned slopes of dead and dying men and horses, and added, "You've weathered the first test handily. I wonder if there's such a thing as a lorn-slaying spell?"
Tindror shrugged. "There's such a thing as too much magic in a kingdom, that much I know."
Deldragon shook his head, watching servants hasten out of Wrathgard to hand his two new guests each a small, half-full laedre. "Too much magic? That's like saying 'too much boar' or 'too many knives.' 'Tis not the magic... 'Tis those who wield it; their weakness, that they get so seduced by power as to use it for their every whim. But this is converse for a fairer day, another time." He turned his head and cried, "We ride!"
"We ride!" the Deldragon knights roared in chorus, and set about turning their mounts in thunderous unison.
Deldragon nodded to Tindror, raised his open hand in salute, and said to Rod and Taeauna, "Guests, will you ride with me?"
"Bright Lord of Galath, we will," the wingless Aumrarr replied, framing her words in the tones and serene dignity of a noble lady of long years and high standing.
The velduke flashed his teeth at her in a delighted smile. "I believe I'm going to enjoy this ride home even more than usual."
Taeauna inclined her head to him, and turned to raise her hand in salute to Baron Tindror, who was still standing with his arms folded, in the open doorway of Wrathgard. He lifted his hand in response, face carefully expressionless.
Aside from Taeauna, who was watching for it, Rod was the only person who saw Tindror's lips move, soundlessly framing the words, "I love you."
Then Wrathgard and its bearded baron were behind them, Deldragon knights closing in around them in a jingling, clottering forest of trotting riders.
The velduke leaned close to Taeauna and said, "A good man; one of the few. You have just seen the pride and folly of Galath. If we were all a bit less noble and high-minded, and a bit more surly and... and..."
"Pragmatic," Rod murmured, earning himself a startled look from Deldragon, and then a fierce nod.
"Come," the velduke cried then to the knights all around, spurring his horse into a canter. "Ride in earnest! Lances up! 'Tis a long ride to Bowrock!"
THE RIVEN KEEP stood on a ridge deep in the wild heart of the Great Forests; already young trees were sprouting up amid its blackened and tumbled stones, and older ones thrusting out branches to cloak it in their greedy Teachings for sunlight. The winged Aumrarr stalking grimly through the seared ruin moved slowly, for they were weary from a long flight, and battered from battle.
"Well, 'tisn't called Shatterjewels for nothing," Juskra said fiercely, impatiently brushing matted blonde hair back from her scarred face. "Of course the Dooms blasted every likely-looking stone and wall to powder! They'd cook and eat their own grandmares in hot-gobbling haste, if they thought doing so would win them one more spell!"
"Sister," the youngest and most beautiful Aumrarr replied quellingly, "tell us something we don't know. Years upon years of sisters before us swarmed all over this keep looking for magic, any magic!" Dauntra waved her arms at the devastation around them. "I don't know what you were thinking to find that they couldn't."
"A stone or two of the keep still standing," Juskra snarled back. "Do the Dooms have to wantonly despoil everything they touch?"
"It seems so," dark-robed Lorlarra sighed, coming into the shattered room from the dark opening that had brought her from the well-chamber. It had been a tight fit, even with her wings folded tightly around her. "Just be glad they've raged over this place so often, and thoroughly satisfied themselves that no magic remains but the echoes of what is lost. Otherwise, the power Ambrelle and I just used would have them all here in a trice, hungry for battle and new magic to call their own."
"It worked?" Dauntra's usually impish voice was sharp.
Ambrelle was the tallest and oldest of the four, and had fought hard and long. Her severe face was pinched with pain as she came out of the well-chamber in Lorlarra's wake, her purple-black hair hanging across her face as she nodded wearily. "Thus far," she said. "Malraeana and Phandele float in spell-sleep, and the healing has begun. It will take days, sisters mine."
"There are our own hurts to see to, after that," Juskra muttered. "I'm in no hurry to leave these glows that blind the Dooms to what we do here. Where in all the Falcon Kingdoms are folk free of their sway now?"
"And Highcrag and all our sisters are gone," Lorlarra whispered, hugging herself as if a chill wind had just thrust past her, "or twisted by those spell-tyrants."
"Twisted? Who? I thought they slaughtered everyone at Highcrag."
"They did." Lorlarra's voice was sadder than ever.
"Then who?"
"Taeauna. Wingless, now, and seen walking the world with a wizard."
"Taeauna? A wizard? Who?"
Lorlarra shrugged. "An unknown mage. From afar, perhaps."
"So how is it we know he's a wizard?"
Lorlarra shrugged again. "Who else but a wizard could tame her, sear off her wings, and have her so enthralled that she'd travel with him?"
Dauntra shook her head. "I'll not believe that until I see it myself," the youngest of the four Aumrarr said wearily. "There are wild tales enough whispering their ways ar—"
"This is no wild tale," Juskra said bitterly. "I heard it, too. From a trader who's one of the Vengeful."
Dauntra clapped her wings angrily, her large brown eyes darkening in anger. "Ah! The Vengeful, who see fell wizards under every stone and behind every face that so much as looks at them!"
"The Vengeful," Juskra snapped back, "who have found so many wizards these last few years and sent them to swiftly dug graves."
"Yes, and what has that given Falconfar? Three Dooms who tower over all the lands like god-colossi; three Lord Archwizards in the making!"
"Sisters!" Ambrelle said severely. "Cease this wrangling! I myself cleave to the thinking that we cannot be certain, from here in this ruin in the green wild heart of nowhere, whether or not Taeauna is a traitor and the man she's traveling with is a foe or a wizard, nor rightly deem them peril or no."
Tall and tired, she stormed into the midst of her fellow Aumrarr, hands on hips, and added crisply, "I believe our time will be much better spent making a meal, devouring it, and talking over Falconfar as it is, not Falconfar as one maimed sister and a mystery man walking with her may or may not make it, in time to come. There is much to discuss, sisters mine."
Juskra nodded a little sullenly, and scratched at the stiff, stained bandage that covered most of her breast. "Well said. So talk. I'll suffer you to do so just as long as we ride over new ground, or speak of what is happening now; I've little stomach for trading words we already know, about places all of us have seen time and again, year in and year out. For instance, it should come as no surprise to any of us that Hammerhand of Ironthorn has come out as clear and strong in his hatred of wizards as Tharlark of Arvale has ever been, nor that Eldalar of Hollowtree cleaves to the same view. I do not care to sit through all of us listing such well-known lore one more yawn-inducing time."
"Fair enough," Dauntra said flatly. "Know, then, that the newest of the Dooms—'N'—has successfully bred and spell-changed the beasts he calls 'greatfangs.'"
"The three-headed dragons?"
"They're not—oh, never mind. Yes, the three-headed dragons."
"And we know this because..,?"
"Because he risked one on a daylight raid on the docks of Irkyn, in Rornadar, riding a second overhead to watch what befell. He'd not have risked them both had he not possessed others. Moreover, the two seen by the Irkynaar were younger and smaller than the lone greatfangs seen over Sardray a month back."
"He's breeding them," Lorlarra agreed.
"Yes," Juskra echoed. "I judge his thinking much as you do; he'd never risk both if they were all he had. My new lore is nothing like as dramatic as that, yet will be the more lasting."
Ambrelle's eyes twinkled. "Well, with a teasing like that, we're certainly listening. Say on."
"When we were all but younglings," the badly scarred Aumrarr began, rising from where she'd been sitting with hands clasped around knees to pace restlessly, wings stirring, "there were no priests in Falconfar, no churches. Holy places, yes; altars, aye. We murmured a few words to fading gods more or less for luck, and most Falconaar counted themselves lucky there were no sacrificial pyres anymore, no priests scourging and damning and striking unbelievers down dead. For kindness and sick-tending and rescues unlooked-for, Falconaar had us."
"I know where your words are leading," Dauntra murmured. "Say on."
"First came the Forestmother, worshipped in the Raurklor holds, who warded off wolves and worse, and guided home those lost in deep woods. And who could speak out against aid like that? Or fear a few young lasses who went barefoot, and nurtured mosses growing on their own skin?"
Juskra turned slowly to meet the gazes of each of her three sisters, and added softly, "So they are here to stay, and growing stronger. They talk now of Holy Moots, and 'Calling Up the Mother,' and having a say in who rules a Great Forest hold and who does not. Which is more than enough to rightfully alarm Falconaar. The way-traders who travel far with their wagons are already wary and muttering, warning each other of holds to be avoided if one travels alone. This much, sisters, you know already, or should."
She turned her head slowly to survey the faces of her fellow Aumrarr again, and added fiercely, "Hearken now to my news, out of southern Scarlorn. A new god is rising, darker by far than the Forestmother. 'Gluth,' they call it, the Black Beast, a gigantic padding thing of claws and fangs that stalks the wild places, and hunts humans left alone. Hunts those its worshippers bid it to, they believe, staking sacrifices out to die and going on hunts of their own to bare and wound and leave helpless victims of their choosing, for the 'Holy Jaws and Claws' to find... This is evil, sisters, and rising, and many want to believe in it."
Juskra stalked across the riven room, folding and unfolding her wings in her rising agitation. "I tremble for the day—and it will come soon—when one of the Dooms sees that the way to exalt himself over his rivals, and us all, is by using his spells to shape such a beast and use it to command all who worship Gluth. And where men hate and fear wizards, those same men will cower before a god."
"Shit," Lorlarra whispered, white to the lips. "Juskra, you certainly know how to make this particular Aumrarr wish she'd died at Highcrag. If you're right—and I'm sure you are—this is a shadow over all Falconfar, and we will live out the rest of our lives in its gloom. Not that it sounds like our lives will be all that long."
"They won't be, the moment some priest of the Black Beast or the Forestmother decides Aumrarr are an evil to be hunted down to earn divine approval," Ambrelle said softly, running her hands absently through her purple-black tresses. "Oh, sister, can this be true?"
"Can and is," Juskra said darkly. "Deny it or refuse to see it, and you endanger us all. I begin to think the best service we can do Falconfar is to fly swift and hidden to every last Falconaar ruler and elder we can find, and warn them against the worship of these two deities, speaking as if the Dooms are already controlling them, but doing so in places where they are too busy to rule or conquer directly. We need the rulers to be scared enough to act, but not too scared to act."
Dauntra nodded. "That will work. I like it not, and it will be both difficult and dangerous the moment the Dooms learn what we're doing, but it is our best road ahead. Sister, I thank you for this warning." She rose, strode slowly across the room to what was left of a wall, thrust her hand gently against it in slow anger, and then turned, eyes flashing.
"So we must together do the tongue-march across Falconfar, here and now, and decide where to go and what to do. Ambrelle, conjure the map."
Ambrelle looked to Juskra. "Promise you'll not storm out if we chew over holds and rulers?"
Juskra drew back her lips to show her teeth in a mirthless smile. "You have my word. Make the map."
Ambrelle drew forth a pendant from its hiding place in her bodice, clasped her hands together around it, closed her eyes, and whispered, "Show me."
The shattered and tumbled stones before her began to glow an eerie emerald hue, a glow that rose in threads from them, drifting like smoke. In a few silent moments it had formed a horizontal disc in the air, a circle as thin as parchment and as far across as a wagon... a circle of blue and dun brown and dark green, that spun and flowed and then quite suddenly became sharp-featured. There were seas in three places, one of them vast enough to fill a third of the disc. A great spine of mountains arose that almost split the disc into two halves, trailing off into that large sea in a string of isles like the barbs of a dragon's tail. The rest was brown land or great ragged stretches of green forest.
The other Aumrarr all leaned forward as Ambrelle opened her eyes, sighed, and put the pendant back in its warm haven.
"Begin where we go most seldom," Dauntra suggested, "east of the Spires."
Juskra nodded, extending a long, sleek pointing arm to indicate a huge stretch of land that filled the southeastern arc of the disc. "Sarmandar of the Manykings. Large, rich, deep-historied, and not worth a moment of our time. We could spend our lives—long lives, mind—just going from one self-proclaimed king to the next. So long as they make war on each other—and that is all they do, sisters!—words of ours are wasted on their unhearing ears. Let fabled Sarmandar go its own way and find its own doom; let us keep to the north of the Wyrmsea."
Her pointing finger moved north, across a narrow sea that bounded Sarmandar to the coast of the huge landmass that covered most of the disc.
"On that north coast are the Spellshunned Lands," Lorlarra murmured, bending forward in her tattered black war-harness. "Perfumes and silks, and old, old magics gone wild and wrong. They'll not welcome the Dooms in black-towered Inrysk and proud Marraudro."
"Wherefore they have no defenses against the Dooms or any wizard of might," Juskra warned. "Moreover, with magic denied yet at work, all awry, those who hunger for order will find the promise of order—and so, a new taste for their own hunger—in the Beast and the Forestmother."
Ambrelle frowned. "So who rules there?"
Juskra sighed. "Beyond what all know, that the Lion-Knights rule in Marraudro, I know not. Inrysk has local lords and some sort of council of lords over all, as I recall, but of today's names and faces, I know none."
Ambrelle nodded. "Shall we leave them to last, sisters mine? Whispering to rulers takes longest when one must learn who and where each ruler is, and with our wings, we stand out, and may easily be used as unwitting pawns by the malicious, to work mischief by our very approaches to the ears of kings."
"Well said," Dauntra agreed. "So, trending back toward us, west of Inrysk along the shores of the Wyrmsea, we come to Harfleet, Sholdoon, and Zancrast; all but names on the map to me."
"I've been to two of the three," Lorlarra said quietly. "All are bustling ports on Ommaun the Wyrmsea, their wealth ruling small territories around them. Uneasy neighbors, but too greedy for daily gold to leave off trading long enough to take up arms against each other. I'm sure the Dooms would love to rule them, and they would welcome wizards and the cultists as they welcome everything: as tools to earn t
hem even more coin."
"The Dooms and priesthoods are hardly tools to be governed for long by mere greedy traders," Juskra disagreed.
"True, sister, but the folk of those ports won't know that until too late. Taraun Zaer is High Lord of Zancrast, a vain, purring, oh-so-jaded man whose wits are keen, but far feebler than he thinks they are." Lorlarra rolled her eyes. "Tall, slender, trim-black-bearded, and thinks himself irresistible to all women and any man he puts his mind to conquering."
"Charming," Juskra said venemously. "Well, Belrikoun is a lesser evil, then. He's the Ruling Scepter of Sholdoon. A fat man who looks like the former pirate and everyday greasy glutton that he is, but just and kind when he wants to be, and nobody's fool. He will listen, I think."
It was Dauntra's turn to frown. "Wasn't Sholdoon the place with the oh-so-sneering merchant nobles, who feud with everyone who comes within reach, and allow their own pride to rule them?"
Juskra nodded. "It was, but Belrikoun tamed them, by wooing the younger ones and slaughtering their elders but making the deaths seem richly self-earned. They love him not, but they do obey him, and now see and judge the world as it is, and not as they prefer it to be."
"Which proves that one man can change attitudes within his lifetime." Dauntra held up a hand to stop her fellow Aumrarr interrupting as she pondered. "Hmm. For my part, I have been to Harfleet. Arl Hraskur is the Waveking of Harfleet, and has received Aumrarr before in friendship. The more beautiful we, the more friendly he, if you take my meaning."
Lorlarra sighed. "Sister, we do. A night in his bed will mean he listens, then, but will he heed?"
Dauntra nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. "Like Belrikoun, he's too wise not to pounce on any hint of a threat to his rule. He is wary, and has his spies, and plans ahead. He will know what to do. And do it."
"Which brings us to Scarlorn, just the other side of the Falconspires from us," Juskra said briskly. "Huge, pastoral Scarlorn."
"Land of farms, swamps, and more decadent satraps than I can count," Ambrelle sighed. "Must we visit them all?"
