by Ed Greenwood
"That was a royal command, Glaroskur!"
The knight regarded him unhappily, then bowed deeply, turned, and marched out.
Devaer sighed in bored exasperation, listening to his bodyguard's boots tramping into the echoing stone distances of cold and empty Galathgard. He hated and feared the touch of Arlaghaun's mind on his, that cold and utter tyranny, yet somehow it thrilled him, too.
And when the wizard who really ruled Galath needed him not, he felt so empty. Bored, listless, lying here in idleness, ready to scream and claw the walls...
The sounds of Glaroskur's boots stopped, and there came a strange but very brief wet, startled, choked-off sound.
The King of Galath frowned. "Glaroskur?"
Silence. He swung his feet down off the table, stood up sharply, shook out his silken sleeves, and bellowed, "Glaroskur?"
"Your majesty," a soft woman's voice said from behind him, "may I serve you, instead?"
Devaer whirled around, clapping his hand to his sword, and felt his jaw drop open. He couldn't help it; couldn't help staring, either.
The nude figure who stood barefoot in the doorway was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, and by the Falcon, she was an Aumrarr! Not a soft, yielding beauty; but a hard-muscled, sharp-jawed warrior, by her looks, her shapely body covered with sword-scars, a fierceness about her face... but a look of yearning, too, of yielding to him. She was kneeling to him, too, going to her knees more gracefully than any servant lass or highborn lady.
Devaer found his mouth was very dry, and his manhood was stirring urgently. He managed to swallow, and peered wildly around, thrusting a hand up into his lank black hair to adjust his crown without even realizing he was doing so. "Y-you're alone?"
"Quite alone," came the soft answer. "Summoned here by magic. Not meaning to, or even knowing what he did, your knight just blundered through a gate that took him to my bedchamber, far from Galath, and in the same stroke, brought me here. So it seems, as you are deprived of his vigilance, I should... guard your body."
Someone sniggered from the doorway behind him.
King Devaer whirled around again, sword flashing out, but was far too slow to block the two blades flying toward his throat.
Almost severed, his head lolled limply on his shoulders as his life-blood fountained in all directions, and he emptied his bowels and started the slow stagger that would end up on the floor.
Juskra got up off her knees without waiting to see if the body and the head stayed together when they hit the floor. She was too busy scowling. "Is that all the fun you wanted me to have? He wasn't half bad looking, and I was just warming to the task."
"I'll say. 'Guard your body,' she gasped breathlessly. Falcon, Jusk, I almost spewed!" Lorlarra jeered, clutching at her throat in mock nausea and striking a pose in the dark tatters of her armor.
"Oh, your majesty," Ambrelle twittered in mimicry, "just let me kneel here in my bared skin and worship you! Urrrkh!"
As the mock-vomiting of the oldest Aumrarr rang out loudly, Devaer's body fell heavily to the floor, sword clattering, and his head rolled free.
"Behold the King of Galath," Lorlarra said grandly, as it came to a stop near her boot.
"And Lord of Falcons," Ambrelle agreed gravely, tossing her long purple-black hair. "Don't forget that. Fetch me that crown, Lorl; I think Arlaghaun has controlled it long enough."
"Wait!" Juskra threw up her hand, frowning. "What if he traces us through it?"
"Let him," Dauntra said softly from the doorway behind her, murder in her usually impish brown eyes. "If he comes after us, we'll be ready for him. So let him try his worst, and come within reach." She hefted her sword. "I believe I'll welcome that."
ROD EVERLAR FOUND himself standing on yet another grassy hilltop, turning to face a distant peak he did not recognize.
Turning because he was forced to do so. Something that dwelt in Yintaerghast—that old man in the chair?—was in his head, riding his mind. Something he might have unknowingly invited in, when picking up the first few enchanted items; it had definitely been in his mind, whispering instructions and urging him on, for his acquirings of the later ones.
And now, teleport by teleport, from hill to hill, he was being forced across Falconfar toward a definite though unknown destination.
What had that television character roared? "1 am a free man!" Well, damn it!
"I am!"
Screw this destiny shit.
"Screw it!"
Rod Everlar's shout echoed back to him off dark standing stones all around him on that particular hilltop, but they neither moved nor answered.
DAWN CAME SLOWLY to Galath, and found four Aumrarr flying high and fast out of the heart of the kingdom.
Out of the dark trees below, lorn took to the air, spiraling up to meet them.
The four never slowed.
As rose-red dawn gave way to the bright sun of the morning, Juskra looked back. "I'm glad you kept crown and head together," the scarred Aumrarr called to Ambrelle. "They'll come in far more useful than just the crown."
In reply, the oldest Aumrarr smiled and held up the sack in her fist, purple-black hair streaming out behind her as she flew.
Then her face changed to its usual severe expression, and she pointed down with her other hand at the swiftly climbing lorn. "Sisters mine, we have visitors."
"Six-and-twenty," young and beautiful Dauntra called, having just finished counting them. "Let us see what they decide to do if we ignore them, and just fly on."
Lorlarra nodded. "Well said," she called back. The ongoing disintegration of her armor had left her almost bare, but trailing a tangle of dark straps and armor plates.
So the four Aumrarr did just that, turning not a handspan aside from their chosen path. The lorn circled uncertainly in front of them, trying to catch their eyes.
All four Aumrarr met their gazes, gave them polite, pleasant smiles, and flew straight on.
The lorn traded puzzled frowns with each other, flapped hastily aside to meet and confer in harsh whispers, and then turned to look again at the four Aumrarr, now past them and streaking steadily away across the sky, as straight as four speeding arrows.
The winged women did not look back.
After several brief and uncertain hissed exchanges that decided nothing, the lorn dropped away, seeking their forest perches again.
THE DOOR BLEW inward, shards and dust swirling and bouncing in the short passage that led to his main scrying-room.
"Amalrys?" Arlaghaun spat out her name, his thin lips even tighter than usual, letting her hear all of his anger in that icy query, letting his magic carry his quiet voice the length of the ruined hall.
There came no answer. But then, he hadn't intended to wait for one.
His many shieldings—even the strongest one, that could hold up Ult Tower if it was hurled down on his head—were up and flaring in front of him as he strode down the hall, brown eyes afire and sharp nose twitching, his hands flexing in his hunger to throttle his disloyal apprentice.
He stopped dead. Many of the scrying-crystals had shattered, their magic now but sparkling dust and ash on the floor, and draped across the frame that held the surviving stones, smoke smudged around her gaping mouth and empty eyesockets, her bare body covered with ash, lay Amalrys.
She was very still. The Doom of Galath stared hard at her for a long moment, and then peered swiftly all around the room. Then he sent forth his shieldings in a questing cloud.
There were no sudden flarings to mark lingering spell-traps on her or between him and where she lay; Arlaghaun strode to her and took her in his arms.
She was lighter than he remembered. Chains chimed softly as limp limbs sagged; her body was cold.
Arlaghaun held her across one arm, as if she weighed nothing, and with his other hand stroked her honey-blonde hair. His thin lips quivered, just once, but his burning eyes remained dry and hard.
Taking her by the chin and turning the ruin of her face away, the Doom
of Galath idly entertained thoughts of making love to what was left of his Amalrys one last time.
She was beautiful still, but where would the thrill of surrender come from? His memories would outshine all, and they would serve him until he captured someone better. And that would be soon.
He let her body fall and turned away, somewhat wearily telling the still air around him, "Behold. Arlaghaun is master in his own castle again."
The still air declined to answer, of course.
Arlaghaun walked back down the passage, dismissing for now thoughts of just how many guardians he'd had to blast and maim to make that claim, and put his hand on a particular stone.
It glowed obediently, and took him in an instant to another room, where a blank, solid wall stood in front of his nose.
"One more thing to do before I compel Klammert," he murmured. "Somehow, there's always one more thing to do."
Arlaghaun thrust a hand at the wall, and it melted away at his touch; he stepped through the wall as if it wasn't there, into a large hall choked with the broken, heaped bodies of guardians.
Picking his way around them, he reached the mirror and slid it back into place, to once more conceal the passage that led to his escape gate.
Scenes were moving in the mirror. Folding his arms across his chest, Arlaghaun stepped back to watch.
THE LOAD OF stone plunged down out of the sky and slammed into the mud like a giant's fist, bursting apart in all directions. Hurtling stones sent men and horses screaming alike as they were tumbled, crushed by thudding stones, and then buried.
"Glorking Deldragon!" Baron Chainamund snarled through his bristling straw-yellow mustache, retreating hastily for all his great bulk. "Where's he getting all this stone from?"
"The houses of Bowrock that we're smashing down with our catapults, Chainamund," Klarl Snowlance replied wearily, in his reedy voice. "Ondurs, could you judge just where that was fired from?"
Marquel Mountblade was busy wiping dust from his everpresent monocle; he paused just long enough to shake his head. "Somewhere near the northeast tower," he replied sourly. "Which is about as much as we already knew. We're going to be here a long time, lords."
"Right," Arduke Stormserpent said briskly, a rare smile on his usually stern, dark face. "I'll have my playpretties brought in by coach, then. And the uppermost racks of my wine cellar."
Those words brought Velduke Brorsavar's head around, huge in its gleaming helm. Thankfully, it, too, was wearing a smile. "Will you be sharing, Laskrar?"
"But of course, lord. For the greater glory of Galath," Stormserpent replied with a low, sweeping bow.
"Ah, now, that's the best news I've heard these last five days!" Arduke Windtalon put in, turning from the maps of Bowrock he'd been peering at. He'd used his helm to hold one corner of their curling edges down, freeing his shoulder-length mane of copper-colored hair. There was a certain eagerness in his almond-hued eyes. "As Mountblade says, these fortress walls aren't going away anytime soon."
Several of the Lords of Galath tried to peer up through all the drifting smoke, past the chaos of dead horses and heaped rubble and tents, at the battlements looming somewhere near, but the smoke was too heavy, just now, to see anything properly.
Arduke Lionhelm stiffened, and pointed right up into the sky overhead. His handsome, hawk-eyed face wore a look of astonishment. "Look! Aumrarr! "
"Aumrarr? Here?"
"They're either spying, or running missives for Deldragon," Baron Chainamund snarled, sweat running down his florid face. "Shoot them down!"
Smoke promptly hid the winged women from view, even as a bowman came crashing through the rubble, calling, "Lord? Your will?"
"Ignore him," Velduke Brorsavar snapped, his gleaming-armored shoulders as broad as the two nobles standing beside him put together, "and get back to your post. Shoot at nothing until I give such an order, or Velduke Bloodhunt, yonder, does."
"Aye," Arduke Lionhelm agreed. "Barons tend to slay too swiftly, and then storm about raging that they can't question corpses, after."
"Lords," the bowman said gravely, bowing low. Then he rose, turned, and fled back through the rubble even as Chainamund roared, "How dare you, Lionhelm?"
"Very easily," the arduke replied with a shrug, his hawk-eyes hard. "I grow weary of foolishness, Chainamund. Dispense with it, and we'll get along fine. Spew more of it, and I'll begin to consider how well Galath will get along with one less blustering idiot of a baron in it."
The florid baron's mustache quivered, like a bush disturbed by men fighting in it, and his face went from angry red to roiling purple. "Veldukes," he yelped, "d-did you hear that? Did you?"
The broad shoulders of Velduke Brorsavar turned, a mountain of metal moving, and their owner said coldly, "I certainly did, Glusk Chainamund. And your blusterings, too. I have time for neither. Still your tongue, or I'll find myself agreeing with Lionhelm."
Four Aumrarr came swooping out of the smoke just above his head, then, gave him wide smiles, and let go of something that fell through the air to bounce wetly on the cracked slab of stone the two veldukes had been using as a table.
The object was round; it rolled and hopped the length of the table before wobbling off one edge to thump to the ground below. And stare endlessly, bulging-eyed, up at the sky.
A noble who'd been humming to himself stopped doing so, abruptly.
"Falcon!" Marquel Blackraven swore, his emerald eyes hard as he stared at it. Behind him, Lords of Galath glanced over, stared hard, then crowded forward to stare some more.
Even if the glint of the crown hadn't still been about its brows, they all knew what it was.
The severed head of the King of Galath stared up at them, unseeing.
By the time Arduke Stormserpent and fat, florid Baron Chainamund had stopped swearing and peered into the skies again, there was no sign of the winged women. After a moment, they looked down at the head again.
"Bloodhunt!" Velduke Brorsavar bellowed into the smoke, his deep voice as strident as any war-horn. "Come quickly! I need you here!"
"So that's it, then," Arduke Windtalon said flatly, clapping his helm down over his shoulder-length copper hair. "End of siege."
"Certainly not!" Marquel Duthcrown snapped, striding forward to stand over the severed head with his sword drawn, and hastily settling his own helm back into place, wisps of stray white hair thrusting out in all directions under its edge. "Certainly not! We have a royal command to follow; a sworn duty to perform!"
"That writ ended with the severing of that royal neck," Arduke Lionhelm said firmly, "and I for one was not witness to your coronation, Duthcrown. Presume not to speak for the throne."
Duthcrown glared at him, mustachioed lip drawn back to expose his teeth, and barked, "You speak open treason! Chainamund! Murlstag!
Dunshar! To me! Stand with me, here, and guard the crown against all such traitors!"
"Before we speak of such guardianship," Arduke Stormserpent said sharply, his dark face even sterner than usual, "suppose we hew a little closer to common agreement on just who's a traitor, and why. Nobles who presume to stand in judgement over the rest of us tend to annoy me. I'm annoyed right now."
"And isn't that just too bad?" Baron Chainamund sneered, face reddening anew as he bent, snatched up the crown, and clapped it on his own head. "Stormserpent is annoyed. Pity." Twirling his great straw-yellow mustache with one fat finger, he roared, "Hear ye, all: I hereby proclaim myself King of All Galath! King Glusk, the first of that name! And I now decree that Stormserp—"
His words ended in a great gout of vomited blood that drenched the point of the swordblade that had suddenly burst forth from his ample stomach.
Arduke Lionhelm let him spew his way down to a last throat-gurgling choking before he put a boot on Chainamund's back and kicked the dying baron off his steel.
"Enough," he said, his voice ringing as cold and hard as iron. "We will have order, or there will be war here, at the very gates we're besieging. Lords, Gal
ath will survive only—"
"How dare you?" Marquel Duthcrown cried, waving his sword. "You murder a crowned king, in front of all of us—"
"Duthcrown, be still!" came a deep roar. "Speak such foolishness to your mistresses, not to us!"
Velduke Aumon Bloodhunt, with his knights behind him, was standing atop a nearby heap of rubble, glaring down, more white than gray in his hair now, but angry blue eyes snapping as bright as ever. "I am the ranking noble here, as it happens," he added, his deep voice only a trifle quieter, "and I say Chainamund was no more king than a stable-boy who happens to lay hand on a crown and prance about with it! Let us draw off from the walls, beyond the reach of Deldragon's catapults, and hold council."
"Bah!" Duthcrown spat, striding to meet him. "For years you and the other toothless old lions have farted and swaggered and paraded before us, whenever you're not fawning and simpering before this wizard and that! Well, I'll stomach no more of it!"
Waving his sword, he charged up the slope, losing his helm in his haste, his white hair wild in the wake of its tumbling. Bloodhunt's knights rushed to meet him, swords singing out, and—
Another fall of stone crashed down from the sky, shattering and burying the men on the slope; one moment their swords were flashing in the dust, and the next, dust was drifting above a new heap of rubble, where all those men had been.
"The crown!" Klarl Snowlance shouted, his reedy voice rising as shrill as a war-horn. "Where is the crown?"
"The crown," Lionhelm bellowed, "is here!" The hawk-eyed arduke grounded his sword on a stone in front of him, and all of the converging nobles saw that its point was encircled by the Crown of Galath.
"I am not claiming it," the handsome arduke added, just as loudly. "I propose to take it into my hand and go away from the walls, as Velduke Bloodhunt has so wisely suggested. Then let us parley in peace, lords, and—"
With a great roar, burly Klarl Dunshar and two of his knights who were even larger men than their master, with their three breastplates gleaming like oversized shields, abreast, charged at Lionhelm, swords out. Baron Murlstag joined in the rush, yellow eyes flashing, and Ardukes Stormserpent and Windtalon spat curses and hastened, tall and swift, to defend Lionhelm. Swords flashed out, all around the heaps of rubble, and as the nobles who wielded them started shouting, some of their heralds and equerries sounded war-horns to spread word.
