Falconfar 03-Falconfar

by Ed Greenwood

  "Like someone she wanted to have her legs around?" Garfist rumbled, reaching for his sword with one hand and bringing the tankard around with the other, shattering the drinking-jack across the nose of the glaring tavernmaster, who'd been stalking up on him from behind. The man fell like a sack of stones.

  "Instead of someone who beat her and took her by force and hauled her hair out by the roots, night after night?" the burly former panderer added. "Now I know ye, Markel. Murderer of rival merchants and anyone else who got between ye and the nearest heap of coins—including at least one Stormar heir I know about. Come to Galath where they don't know that about ye yet? Or are the Stormar lords coming for ye with their swords out, hey?"

  "They'll come too late to save your lying hide, that's for sure!'" Markel spat. "Take him!"

  The bodyguards at his shoulders charged forward, swords slashing the air to drive Garfist back, and then dropping into vicious lunges. The second pair of bodyguards swung wide to try and flank him. A table of armsmen in matching livery hastily drew their feet in out of the way, and leaned back in their seats to watch the fun, casting glances at their knightly master at the next table for direction. The knight himself was smiling thinly and leaning his chin on his hand, for a better view.

  The bodyguards closed in on the fat outlander.

  Garfist dropped back, closed his hands around the edge of a table, and hauled on it, hard. It came around in a great arc and crashed through two swordarms, sending the bodyguards sprawling and their blades clanging to the floor behind the bar.

  He charged forward in its wake, took one man by the throat and broke his neck, kicking the other viciously in the face to keep him on the floor.

  As he turned to deal with a third bodyguard, Markel came at him with a shriek, sword and dagger out and high—and vanished in a gout of flame as Iskarra's bag, trailing flame, struck the point of his dagger and burst, igniting with a roar.

  A moment later, Isk thrust a needle-thin blade under the edge of the last bodyguard's codpiece. The man shrieked and crashed to the floor, clutching himself.

  Garfist knocked aside the cornered bodyguard's sword, and slammed a fist into the man's throat.

  He turned away without pause, knowing he'd slain his man.

  "Isk, Isk," he said then, watching the blackened Markel collapse to the food-littered floor and writhe in strangling agony, "ye didn't have to do that! I'd have had him down in a trice, look ye, an'—"

  The bodyguard Garfist had knocked to the floor tried again to rise to his feet. This time the burly man put real weight behind his kick, ruining the man's face and snapping his neck around at a crazy angle. The warrior sagged back in silence, mouth gaping, his one visible eye staring fixedly at the ceiling-beams overhead.

  "Right," Garfist said in satisfaction. "That's that done and gone. Now, is there any chance of a hungry traveler getting some food on his table, before the night's out?"

  He turned back to the bar. "Ho! Anyone?"

  Iskarra's warning scream came a moment too late, and he was sent reeling by a stool hurled into the side of his head.

  Fetching up against the bar, Gar grunted, shook his head, grimaced, and turned to face the direction whence the stool had come.

  A dozen or more Galathans stood facing him balefully. Stools and tables had been flung aside, and some of them had knives in their hands.

  "That man was hiring here, spending a lot of coin," one of their, said, pointing down at the smoldering, gasping Markel. "Now you've snatched all that away."

  Slowly and menacingly he caught up another stool, hefted it, and threw it at Garfist, who sidestepped and ducked, to let it tumble past him and crash into the tables beyond.

  "And the good roast gelgreth I paid for is all over the floor," snarled the knight, as Iskarra darted around behind the bar, "and you've put Mrelbrand down and it's not looking like I'll be getting another meal out of his kitchens... so I think I'll just cut me one out of your hide!"

  Another stool came hurtling. Garfist batted it aside, snatched up a stool of his own from nearby, and hurled it back at the armsman who'd thrown it, felling him. Both tables of armsmen came to their feet with a roar.

  The Galathans already on their feet shouted in anger, and as the armsmen joined them, closed slowly in on him.

  The lone man they were facing neither paled nor flinched. Rather than backing away, he strode almost insolently to meet them.

  "So it's a fight ye're after, is it?" Garfist Gulkoun asked them, smiling like a wolf. "Good. Now we shall begin."

  MORL AND TETHTYN blinked at each other. There were unfamiliar I gardens all around them. Tranquil, beautiful gardens, quite deserted of people, with moss-girt stone statues of stern -knights and gowned maidens standing on plinths dotted among the lush flower-beds. The towering walls and ornate oval windows of a grand mansion loomed over the lush little lawn where they -rood.

  No one shouted an alarm, and no war horns blew. Aside from :he gentle buzz of a glimmerwings darting unconcernedly past, silence reigned. They relaxed slightly.

  This translocation was getting easier every time. A confidence was rising within them, a certain cold, efficient "ruthlessness that carried them on from small victory to small victory, the magic was starting to feel right; something that served them rather than something they were in the coils of.

  Tethtyn knew the confidence must really be coming from Lorontar, guiding his thralls, yet even knowing that, it felt good. He felt more powerful, more sure of himself, than ever before. And, yes, the magic was working. Obeying his castings, as if he really was an accomplished wizard, and winning battles.

  Already he and Mori—who wore the same slightly amazed, disbelieving look that he did—were using mightier spells than any hedge-wizard he'd ever heard of, and most every other mage he knew about except the Dooms.

  They were two inexperienced bumblers, for all that—but when they found themselves in real trouble, be rose up inside them, forcing them to do what was needful to win the battle, crush the foe or get away unscathed.

  Lorontar had done that more than a dozen times, now, as Mor and Tethtyn moved around Galath and the Stormar coast at his bidding, seizing books of magic and enchanted things from tombs and hidden rooms, blasting all who sought to prevent them. They were sickened by what they did less and less often. Now all the violent deaths made them wince or frown, not empty their stomachs.

  It was a matter of calm, capable performance, as they did what their minds—that is, what Lorontar lurking in the depths of their minds—commanded them to do.

  But we're good little puppets, Tethtyn thought to himself, turning to peer up at the ornately carved stone walls soaring above the gardens. There were no sentinels atop them that he could see... and still no shouts of alarm, nor challenges.

  Something was making him look to one end of the garden, where the trees reached out to meet the end of the mansion. He knew better than to ignore these urges by now, and Mori was already heading in that direction; Tethtyn hastened after him.

  The gentle music of running water cascading over metal chimes could be heard as they drew near, and irregularly shaped flagstones began to appear, set deep into the sward in a wandering path that curved around two smoothly pruned darsart trees to end at a modest stone archway in the shade of a spreading althantar, and an open door into a stone pavilion.

  Tethtyn followed Mori silently through the arch, and beheld a stone casket styled to resemble a castle. It lay, high and dominant, down the center of the pavilion, and was already stained by rain. Massive stone pillars rose from the cobbled floor to the low roof, and the garden could be seen between them. The pavilion abutted the wall of the mansion, pierced here by no windows, but by a grand stone door.

  There were no signs of anyone about as they stopped side by side to gaze upon the casket, which bore the inscription: "Haerelle Bloodhunt, Velduchess of Galath! Sleeping the long sleep cloaked in much love."

  Mori and Tethtyn looked at each other, shrugged, and worke
d a spell they had used often this morning and the evening before. They heard the faint singing of its rising power, saw wisps of shimmering silver briefly blossom in the air and fade as the magic stole forth... and watched the gigantic stone lid grate off the casket, away from them.

  The turreted slab hovered in the air just beyond the stone box as the mansion door burst open, and five guards burst out, shouting and grabbing at their swords. There were others—maidservants— behind them, and an old man in a splendid dark doublet and breeches, who lurched forward leaning on a gilded cane, his face black with anger.

  "Stop them! Cut them down!" the old man roared, his tiny beard wagging on the point of his chin—and the guards surged forward.

  Mori and Tethtyn, moved by the same cruel will and smiling the same ghost of a smile, thrust the lid forward like a battering ram, smashing into the chests of the guards and bearing them back against the mansion wall with bone-shattering force.

  Maids skrieked and fled in all directions, the aging velduke ducked to avoid the lid and fell heavily, cane cartwheeling in his wake, and the guards screamed in agony—some spewing out thick blood as their ribs splintered. Then the lid fell, released by Lorontar's mages.

  Fresh, shrill cries rent the air as the guards' knees were smashed and feet crushed.

  "What a din!" Mori spat, wincing. "Enough of this!"

  Tethtyn nodded, watching the same brief golden flicker in his fellow mage's eyes that was hazing his own vision. Lorontar was again handing them both the same spell, unfolding it in their minds for the first time and draining the power of the spells he'd readied in their minds to do so.

  "Motherless, misbegotten despoilers!" Velduke Aumun Bloodhunt snarled, struggling to crawl toward them and drawing an ornate belt-knife as he did so. "Thieves, desecrators! Wizards!"

  Mori and Tethtyn gave the enraged old velduke the same mocking smile, murmured the same incantation, curled their hands into the same spider-claws... and sighed as the guards, maids, and the struggling, hissing Bloodhunt all took on dark, flickering purple glows, shuddered uncontrollably in the tightening grip of the magic—and shrank away into black, crawling spiders the size of large mens' fists.

  Most of the spiders scuttled right at Mori and Tethtyn, only to encounter something that drove them back, legs curling in pain, and sent them limping and lurching unevenly away, fleeing lopsidedly as if prodded or chased by something unseen.

  "By the Falcon," Mori muttered, smiling a crooked smile. "It's getting so that one can't even plunder a velduke's dead wife's tomb undisturbed!"

  "Indeed," Tethtyn agreed, wincing as brief regret flared in him— and was promptly washed away in a dark, eager flood of hunger. Magic! They were going to get their hands on more spells!

  Powerful magic, too. The Lady Haerelle Bloodhunt had been a clever woman, not only younger and stronger than her husband, but quite wise and controlled enough to keep her mastery of magic secret from the velduke, all of his guards, and his servants. A pity winter-fever had taken her well before a boulder had crushed his leg at the siege of Bowrock. Even before Arlaghaun had noticed her accomplishments and come calling, as it happened.

  So it had fallen to an ancient and doddering local hedge-wizard— gone to greet the Falcon himself, since—to discover her arts as he laid the usual spells on the dead velduchess that would keep her from rising as a walking skeleton or baleful ghost. Her magic was of sufficient power to frighten the hedge-wizard out of all desire to claim any of her tomes or scrolls for himself, and cause him to bind and conceal the magic beneath her, cloaked in the illusion of solid stone to make it seem part of the casket that held her.

  It was the illusion that drew Lorontar. He could sense it half a realm away, and knew by the feel of it that it cloaked strong magic.

  Consequently his two new hopes were standing before an open casket now, watching the terrified scuttlings of the spiders, and learning all about the hedge-wizard and his illusion as they thrust their hands into it, shattering it, rolling the mouldering, withering cage of bones that had been Velduchess Haerelle Bloodhunt aside to get at what lay beneath her.

  More shouts came from within the mansion, and the pounding of boots. Mori and Tethtyn calmly thrust the corpse this way and that, making very sure they'd found all the magic, then nodded at each other and cast their translocations.

  " Sleeping the long sleep, cloaked in much love," Tethtyn murmured sardonically, as the casket, pavilion, and all started to fade.

  The guards and servants charging out of the mansion had just enough time to stare at the opened tomb, and at the two smiling strangers beyond it, then down at the spiders scuttling furiously everywhere, and start to scream.

  Before Mori and Tethtyn were gone.

  KLARL ANNUSK DUNSHAR thrust his favorite flask of nightwine hastily back down behind the heaped plans and papers on the far side of his desk, choked down a fiery mouthful, and gaped up at the unexpected visitor smiling down at him with one long-fingered hand on her shapely hip. Somehow he managed an attempt at a pleasant greeting.

  "Who by the randy, hargrauling Falcon are you?"

  The woman now bending lithely forward to smile at him—and afford him a generous view down the front of her soft leather bodice—purred, "I am the Lady Talyss Tesmer, of Ironthorn. And I like what I see. Tell me, lord—for you can be nothing less; no man so splendid could be—just what, by the randy, hargrauling Falcon, is your name?"

  Annusk Dunshar gaped at her, sharp-pointed side-whiskers robbing, jaw working as he struggled for the right words... or any words.

  She licked her lips, gazing at him in open desire, and the klarl caught sight of the man standing behind her, also clad in tight, well- worn leathers and sporting a sword and daggers, and stiffened, grabbing for the hilt of his blade.

  Slender fingers forestalled him.

  "Gently, my lord, gently," the woman murmured in soothing reproof, almost in his lap now. "No danger awaits you here. He who stands behind me is my sworn and loyal man, not some murderous thrust-knife or other."

  That man promptly nodded, though Dunshar saw that the man's gaze kept carefully steady, looking past him at something on the far wall of his office.

  "I—" Dunshar flushed, wallowing in confusion.

  Stuttering for a moment, he lowered his head like a bull, put all thinking behind him, and snapped, "I am a klarl of Galath, Lady Talyss. Annusk Dunshar is my name, and I rule over the rebuilding of Galathgard, here around you, and this great castle once it stands proud once more, until the day the King rides in to once more sit the Throne of Galath. Which makes me the seneschal of this most royal of castles, wherefore I ask again: who are you? Am I to understand you rule this Ironthorn? Or is there a Lord Tesmer?"

  "There is, but he lies near death, too old and feeble to rule beyond the door of his own bedchamber—if that. You've not even heard of Ironthorn?"

  Dunshar waved a hasty hand. "No, no, 'tis west of Galath, somewhere beyond Tauren, is it not?"

  "It is, and I have come all that way to see you," she breathed, lifting a knee onto the edge of his chair and thrusting herselr forward until her breasts grazed his chest...

  Dunshar shook himself, like a dog awakening, and managed to ask thickly, "Why?"

  "Because I seek a real man, a man of power and refinement, a great man in the greatest realm Falconfar has ever known, not one of the slackjawed, stoneheaded hay-farmers of Ironthorn. A man such as you."

  Dunshar blinked. "But—but, lady, this is ridic—harrumph, highly un—ah, incred—uh, irregul—"

  "Unusual, I quite grant," the Lady Tesmer murmured, her lips almost brushing his, her breath a warm zephyr carrying a hint of cinammon. "And I am sure that our rough, backcountry Ironthar ways seem clumsy to you, perhaps even striking you as akin to the blandishments of lowly coin-kiss lasses—not that you will have experienced any such personally, my lord klarl, of course, but men who rule hear much, and know much, and anticipate even more.''

  "Uh, indeed they do," Dunshar sai
d brightly, daring to adopt something that just might be interpreted as a tease. He went so far as to wink.

  A moment later, the lips so close to his were locked upon his mouth, and an eager, ardent tongue was thrusting in his mouth, leaving him—

  Choking and sputtering, clawing at the air for aid that did not come and dignity that was quite lost.

  Fingers that thrilled with their gentle touch were tracing his neck and up behind his ear, and toying with the curled hairs of his chest.

  "Lord Dunshar, would you prefer that I beg you? For I will, and gladly; it has been long indeed since 1 have known the touch of a man, and—"

  By some miracle or other, probably involving the Falcon, Annusk Dunshar heaved himself up out of his chair somehow, spilling the woman—gods, she was taller than he was, though now she was down on her knees gazing up at him with glazed eyes and parted lips—off of him. He reeled to his feet, clutching at his sword for fear the woman's unmoving manservant would suddenly lunge forward to thrust steel right through him.

  "No, this can't be happening!" he snarled. "This is some sort of trick! Women just don't—"

  He stared down. She was kissing his dusty boots, grinding herself along the stone floor like a serpent as she licked at them. "Ah, but I do," she murmured. "Yet I am well aware that men—great men, noble lords—have their dignity and their own entanglements. And are guided by manners prevailing here in Galath that I am woefully uninformed about."

  Staring up at him with great dark eyes, she deliberately bent her head again and planted a wet, ardent kiss on the now-gleaming toe of his right boot. "I have, I fear, offended. Lord Dunshar, please believe me when I say it is not my intent to discomfit you—only to have you if you'll have me."

  "I... I am flattered, lady," the klarl said stiffly, uncomfortably aware that anyone could walk by the open door of the office and peer in—to say nothing of the fact that nothing at all would stop anyone from overhearing all of this.

  "Please, arise." He extended his hand. "I would like to meet with you elsewhere, after my work here is done for the day, when we can speak more freely. In the meantime, let me say that although your, ah,... warmth... has more than astonished me, it is not unwelcome, and I am not displeased. May I, ah, offer you some nightwine?"