Falconfar 03-Falconfar

by Ed Greenwood

  Taking no time to curse, Taeauna hurled herself up off the headless body, flung down the hatchet, and launched herself at the door.

  She rebounded off the wall outside the room and sprang headlong out the back door as the discordant singing noises rose into screams and the air thickened and swirled, becoming as dense as treacle above the deck as she crashed down on it and rolled frantically onward, then as light and clear as a desert breeze as her flight took her over the lip of the deck, onto the grass.

  She was two running strides beyond the end of that roll when what she'd been expecting happened.

  Behind her, much of the house blew up.

  Pieces of wood and brickwork were flung high into the air as the blast slammed into Taeauna's back and flung her down the yard.

  She had beheaded a mage of power, and magics tied to his death—spells he'd cast down the years, but left hanging until this most dire of fates should befall him—were finally taking effect.

  She slammed into the ground hard, right beside the moaning, writhing Rod Everlar, but was hurled on, rolling and bouncing and rolling again, driving all the wind out of her, and finally came to a bruised, flailing stop.

  She fought hard to resist just sinking into welcoming oblivion, and instead struggled up to one elbow and turned to see what was left of Rod's house.

  The room where she'd slain the wizard was shattered, open to the sky and the passing breezes, the roof blown off and the back wall reduced to flaming shards and splinters all over the deck and the lawn.

  There were no blue hands or fingers or anything gory among them, though; the wizard's dying magics would have seen to that.

  Flames were quickening around the gaping wound in the house, but she spared them not a glance.

  Rod Everlar was blinking blearily in her direction and murmuring. "Taeauna? Tay? Taeauna, are you there?"

  "I am, Rodrel," she reassured him, crawling back to him and rolling him over to see how whole he still was.

  Flight of the Falcon, could it be?

  He seemed untouched, completely unharmed by the blast and all it had hurled.

  His mind, though—enthralled by a wizard who'd died while linked to it—might well be another matter.

  Narmarkoun might even be lurking behind those streaming eyes and murmuring voice right now, seething in hiding and awaiting his best chance to lash out at her.

  "Glorking wizards," she hissed to herself, before she asked him whereabouts he hurt.

  His reply was a weak smile, and the words, "All over."

  Behind them both, flames started to rise and roar. The scorched interior walls of Rod's house—and all those books and papers, the work and play of his lifetime—had started to burn.

  ROD! LORD ROD!" Taeauna's voice beside his ear was insistent, her hands gently but firmly shaking him. She was trying to rouse him.

  Rod stared dully up at her, still riding a long downhill slide of agony that was plunging into numbness... was this a dream? She seemed real enough—and agitated, too, her eyes sword-sharp as they peered into his.

  "I need you," she said fiercely into his face, still shaking him. "We must leave this place, and return to Falconfar. Open another dream-gate, as you once did here for me, when we were beset by Dark Helms. Open a gate, Lord Archwizard."

  "Unhhh?" he managed, intelligently. It would be so easy to slide down and away, leaving all of this behind...

  "Rod, open a gate. Please. Now."

  Through his daze, Rod heard another sound, distant but unmistakable. Sirens.

  He could smell smoke, roiling up around them and streaming past.

  Smoke, coming from...

  "My house is on fire, isn't it?" he asked faintly.

  "It is." Taeauna's face, just above him, was grim. "There's nothing left for you here. Except a dungeon cell, when your— police?—get here. I need you to craft a gate, to take us back to Falconfar. Just as you did before, when first we met."

  Rod stared at her. "Yes," he mumbled, "but help me. I'm... I'm drifting..."

  Taeauna leaned close, as if to kiss him—and Rod felt a sudden, sharp pain in his ear.

  "Owwwrah!" he blurted. "You bit me!"

  " Yes," she said into his throbbing ear, her arms going around him to hold him tight. "Lord Rod, remember Falconfar. Hollowtree, and the map on the table there. All my dead sisters at Highcrag. The haystack, and Lord Tindror and that bedchamber of his high up in Wrathgard. Deldragon and his great keep of Bowrock—and the gate that apprentice of his conjured up in its cellars. Just such a gate as I need you to open for us both, now. Remember, Lord Rod Everlar? Remember? Remember?"

  "Yes," Rod murmured, into a tangle of her hair. "Yes..."

  He was seeing again the bright blue edge of the upright oval magic in the dark cellars of Bowrock, its brightening glow...

  "Yes," Taeauna hissed, wrapping herself tightly around him. "Yes, Lord; it's opening! You've done it! Take us home! Take us home!"

  "Where?" Rod asked, feeling blue mists swirling into his head from he knew not where, but seeing just one place through them: ruined Malragard, the very place they'd left not long ago.

  Taeauna did not reply—for they were already bumping down, hip to hip, onto hard, sharp stone rubble scattered on a stone floor.

  They were back in the riven chambers of Malragard, with blood and burned bones and sprawled corpses all around them.

  The Aumrarr sprang up and hauled Rod to his feet, all in one smooth movement.

  He blinked at her mutely, a little dazed and a little lost in the sudden deliverance from the pain in his head. It was gone as if cut off by a knife, vanished as if it had never been.

  "Is—is—Narmarkoun's dead for good, isn't he?" he asked hopefully. "Are all the Dooms gone from Falconfar, then?"

  Peering all around like a hawk expecting trouble and hoping to spy it before it pounced, the Aumrarr snatched up a sword from the floor and handed it to him.

  "Lord Rod," she said reprovingly, "there's a very old saying you really should remember: the Falcon flies, day and night, and the world beneath its wings is seldom simple or easy."

  Despite her grim tone and grimmer meaning, Rod found himself fighting down a sudden chuckle. Of course he should remember that ancient saying.

  After all, he'd made it up, when writing his very first Falconfar novel. Or... had he?

  KLAXONS BLATTED AND sirens whooped, rotating lights flashing great bars of ruby-red light across the two still faces time and again.

  The two men neither moved nor flinched, not even when people burst into the nearby backyard and started running toward them.

  It was almost immediately obvious they'd not been seen; the many men soon milling about the yard were paying attention only to the burning house. Those in the bulky flame suits and helmets were busy dragging and aiming hoses, and the ones in the dark uniforms who'd poured out of all the identical cars topped with lights were just circling around peering about them—though one did look hard at the gently swinging gate, for a moment or two.

  Mori Ulaskro, lately tomekeeper of Lord Luthlarl's private library in Dlarmarr, and Tethtyn Eldurant, until recently the youngest underscribe to Lord Bralgarth, the recently installed Lord of Hawksyl, stood in the trees like patient statues, watching the house burn.

  They made not a sound, and moved only their eyes. They were still several mind-prying spells away from knowing the large, loud red horseless wagons with the red flashing lights were fire trucks, and the men in the dark uniforms who rode the smaller, shriller wagons were police, but Mori and Tethtyn already knew what the wands called "guns" in this world were, and what they could do—and there were a lot of them at the belts of all those excited uniformed men.

  So they stayed very still and just enjoyed the show, wearing identical mirthless smiles.

  This new world was both strange and wondrous. Conquering it would almost certainly be a lot of fun.

  THE LANDING WAS hard but not bad, a solid, jarring blow that snatched away breath, but left t
hem unhurt.

  Garfist trudged a few steps and then stopped and looked about in the moonlight. Just the four of them were on this bare hilltop, with dark stands of trees curving around on his left and behind him, and long, narrow farm fields running away in all other directions, to where the crests of various hills hid—except for the treetops—the rest of unfolding Galath from him.

  Almost certainly including the barns and steadings of the farms these fields belonged to. Yet from here, the four of them stood alone in a deserted land, beholding no signs of settlement but the cleared fields.

  No lights twinkled, and no men nor beasts moved, as far as he could see. All was serene and tranquil.

  "Huh," he grunted, as the moonlight grew stronger around them. "So just where by the flying Falcon are we?"

  Juskra gave him a smile. "Here," she said sweetly.

  He favored her with a disgusted look. "Clever, clever Aumrarr! So where, exactly, is this 'here' we're standing in?"

  "A part of Galath that isn't an inn full of angry drunkards trying to kill you," Juskra replied meaningfully, lying down in a stretch of the long grass after examining it carefully.

  "Your point," Iskarra put in, sitting down beside her, "is taken. Isn't it, Gar?"

  "Aye," the burly man growled reluctantly, lowering himself to the ground with a wheeze and a grunt. He peered over his shoulder to make sure of Dauntra's whereabouts, and found the beautiful Aumrarr in mid-yawn as she lowered herself onto her side in the grass.

  "Tell us," she told him sleepily, "who you killed, and why, and who's likely to be looking for you henceforth."

  "Why?"

  "We're curious, prying wingbitches, that's why," Juskra drawled. "Who just might not decide to tell you just where in Galath we've dumped you—and might decide never to pluck you out of trouble ever again—if you're too thick-necked and generally unpleasant to answer a few of our questions right now."

  Garfist sighed. "Right. I hear ye. My thanks for saving our behinds. Again."

  "Accepted. So tell."

  Gar looked over at Isk. "Where to begin?"

  "The Aumrarr answer to that," Juskra said quietly, "is always the same."

  "The beginning," Iskarra said flatly.

  Both of the winged women nodded, smiled, and waved at her to start.

  Looking from one of them to the other, Garfist noticed they'd both turned to face outwards, so they could see anyone or anything approaching from the trees.

  Moonlight bathed the forest, as Isk said, "Men drinking too much. Curses, menacing glares, a few fists; the usual. Then the trouble started for us, when an old... friend... recognized Gar, a man named Markel."

  Both Aumrarr nodded, startling Iskarra into blurting, "You know him?"

  Juskra smiled wryly. "Isn't it 'knew' him, now?"

  Garfist gave her another dark look. "Ye saw it all, didn't ye?"

  "We saw none of it," Dauntra told him, "but we know you. Please, tell us all. Every name you overheard, every face you remember, who's dead, who might be... all of it."

  "Why? Are ye trying to keep count of every glorking knight in all Galath?"

  "Yes," Dauntra told him simply. "Haven't you been listening? We are Aumrarr, remember?"

  Then she waited, giving him time for his jaw to drop, and thereafter for Gar to master his astonishment and then his mouth, and close it again.

  Interestingly, it didn't take quite as long as she'd thought it would.

  "THAT'S MALRAGARD?" SORTEL of Taneth sounded less than impressed. "It doesn't look like much."

  "I daresay it struck the eye as a lot more impressive," Bracebold growled, "before some wizard dashed it to the ground with spells. 'Twas a tower, remember; see you any 'tower' now? Yon's a ruin, the tumbled bones of the place, not the brooding keep I've been told about."

  "It was a tower, aye," Askurr said shortly. "I've stood right here, more than once, looking across at it. Rose like a beast's fang, right about... there. I've a mind to camp right here, going no closer, until morning. The moonlight's bright enough, but we can't trust it. Look at all those clouds."

  "They're galloping across the stars in a fair hurry, aye," Zorzaerel agreed. "What about Harlhoh, yonder? Is there an inn?"

  "No," Olondyn the archer said flatly. "As I discovered to my cost, once; had to spend an uncomfortable night shivering out in the woods somewhere yonder. It had an inn, once, aye, but Malraun wanted guests in his hold, right under his hand—or far away. So the inn burnt down, mysteriously. Thrice."

  "And stopped burning down when they stopped rebuilding it, hey?" chuckled Bracebold of Telchassur.

  Olondyn nodded. "Indeed. I stand with Askurr; right here is as close to Malragard as I care to get, in the dark. Let's camp—in a ring we can defend, from right under our boots here to yon dead tree, and stand strong watches, the night through. We can cross the valley on the morrow."

  "When there'll be light enough to see what's killing us," Askurr agreed dryly.

  There were nods and murmurs of assent. "A fair plan," Bracebold told them all. "A fair plan."

  At that moment, a swarm of shadows with silent wings and gleaming swords came swooping out of the night. Two warriors fell dying, nearly beheaded, before Askurr roared, "Lorn! We're under attack! Lorn! Throw down your torches, out in a ring around us—there and there, like so! Hurry!"

  Two lorn tried to silence him, diving in from opposite directions and slashing at his head, but the old warcaptain was faster than he looked. His worn and half-laced armor let him roll smoothly and swiftly away, taking care to be seen to stagger helplessly until the lorn had committed themselves to the kill.

  They slammed helplessly into each other in mid-air, already hacking with their blades. Their dying screams rent the night in unison.

  Olondyn smiled mirthlessly as he strung his bow. His men hadn't waited for his orders; shafts were singing through the night already. Good lads.

  It had been a while since he'd heard a lorn scream, but it was a sound he never tired of hearing.

  GARFIST RAN OUT of things to say, and looked to Iskarra.

  She shrugged. "You left nothing much out, Old Ox." She turned to look at the two Aumrarr. "That's more or less how it befell."

  The winged women regarded each other grimly.

  "Raenor," Juskra said to Dauntra. "Hereabouts, already."

  Her fellow Aumrarr nodded, her face somber, then looked at Iskarra and said almost gently, "Matters in Galath are worse than I'd—"

  " We'd," Juskra interrupted.

  "—thought, and our plans must now change."

  "Is this a 'we four' our, or 'ye two wingbitches' our?" Garfist rumbled warily. "An' what's so dark and dire about this Raenor? He seemed as big a glork-nose as most Galathan knights, all 'obey me or die, scrapings-of-my-boots,' but if that's cause for gloom an' plan-changing, ye must spend every day weeping an' tearing up plans, over an' over again! They're all like that!"

  "Raenor," Juskra said sharply, "dwells about as far away from here as one can get and still be in Galath, yet your telling suggests he and his armsmen have been hereabouts long enough to become known and settled at the Stag's Head—and to feel as if he can swagger it under its roof without answering to the knights hereabout. So someone brought him here who either gives orders to local lords, or is a local lord. Someone is preparing for trouble."

  "A throne war," Iskarra said flatly. "Galath torn apart over who rules it."

  Both Aumrarr nodded. "Indeed. Which means, Gar, you'll get butchered in short order if you wander about Galath right now trying your swindles and tongue-wagging. So plans have changed for us all."

  "Suppose, before ye assume that much," Garfist growled, "ye tell us just what these new plans are. Leaving out no trifling detail— such as, for instance, occasions upon which we'll be fighting pitched battles against mounted armies, or besieging keeps. That sort of thing."

  The ghost of a smile crossed Juskra's face, just for a moment, before she sat up, flexed her fingers, and announced, "We'l
l be staying together, we four. Flying as before, by night. So we have the day ahead of us to rest and eat and make ready—in a manner that doesn't draw Raenor or his like into hunting us—and we fly on after the next sunset."

  "Fly where?"

  "Galathgard. The famous ruined royal castle of the realm, aye. We must get there as swiftly as we can, to see how things stand with its rebuilding, and where we can best hide. In plain sight in its kitchens, if need be—which should please you, Gar. We must be there when the Great Court convenes, and I've a feeling it will be easier to get there now than it will be to try to fight our way across the realm when all the rival nobles and their armies are converging at its gates—with none of them wanting witnesses to what befalls."

  "An' why care we for the first conclave of the new king of Galath?" Garfist sounded more wary than truculent. "Is he likely to ennoble Garfist Gulkoun? Or grant us immunity to his laws?"

  "Hardly," Dauntra told the moon. "If he listens to even a few of the many, many tales about the scoundrel Gulkoun, a swift death for such a miscreant may seem the very height of benevolent mercy. And kings known to have been gentle as nobles often find it prudent, at the outset of their reign, to reveal how strong and ruthless they can be if the need should arise. Just to, ah, educate their nobility."

  Gar waved a dismissive hand. "I'm familiar with both the tactics an' the necessity. 'Change or die' is hardly a new notion, hey?"

  "Iskarra and Garfist, hear me," Juskra said then, gravely. "We may well need you—humans without wings and the unfortunate reputation that goes with them—to aid us or speak for us, if the need arises in Galathgard. As to why we need to be there, let me put it plainly."

  "At last," Garfist grunted, as Iskarra said politely, "Please do."

  Juskra nodded. "We need to see not only how strong Brorsavar's rule looks to be, and who seems to be favored and powerful in 'the new Galath,' and who's out of favor—but we also need to be there if blades are drawn and trouble erupts. Whether such open strife breaks out or not, we also need to see who's missing from the gathering—and perhaps already dead—and what mischief befalls after the Court ends and the nobles all head for home... or elsewhere."