by Ed Greenwood
Garfist started to grin. "Ye make it sound interesting. Like just the sort of time an' place me an' Serpenthips here should be loitering near, to seize spoils and opportunities."
The scarred Aumrarr gave him a crooked smile. "Well put. If things grow too... perilous, we can vanish in a trice, too. In one of the cellars of Galathgard there's an ancient spell-gate linking it to Ironthorn; we can be back there in a single stride."
Garfist blinked, drew in a deep breath, and then made it loudly and colorfully clear that he never in his life, whatever befell, wanted to see Ironthorn again. His bellows echoed back to them all from the dark forest as he wound down, lowered his voice again, and descended to a surly snarl.
"Nor," he said, after much other ranting, "am I all that Falcon- glorking eager to taste the delights of hiding like a rat in the walls of Galathgard, dodging haunts an' lorn an' ancient death-traps if we keep to the ruined wings—an' running the constant risk of discovery by all the arriving nobles an' their knights an' armsmen an' doxies, too, if we venture anywhere they've put a roof on—ye know, the places where the king an' the nobles we want to listen in on will be. Not to mention that hiding in ruins we'll find a distinct lack of easily procured food—or any strong drink at all. Why, I've a mind to—"
"Obey these good lady Aumrarr," Iskarra snapped at him suddenly, rising and glaring up at him. "And agree with their highly sensible schemes, and follow their very reasonable orders like a wise man. For once."
Garfist Gulkoun blinked at his furious partner—by the Falcon, her eyes blazed like fires, they did!—and managed to say, "Uh. Um. Ah. Aye... aye, I will."
Iskarra pointed at the two Aumrarr, and Garfist obediently turned his head and repeated his promise to them.
The moonlight was full on their faces, so he saw their utter astonishment very clearly.
ASKURR DISPATCHED A lorn viciously, trampling and stabbing it until it spasmed and slumped limp and helpless, to bleed out its life. Then he sawed off its talons, on general principles. If you gave these glorkers half a chance to gut you, they'd...
Slashing the air around him as he rose, out of habit, Askurr heard the squalling of wounded lorn on all sides—and the heavy thumps and crashes of their landings. Good, good...
He looked around. Four lorn were converging on one of Olondyn's archers, over on his left, and another pair—no, three—of the beasts were already clawing and slashing at another one, yonder.
"Guard the bowmen!" he roared. "They're going for Olondyn's archers!"
"Hear you!" Zorzaerel cried in reply, from somewhere under a shrieking knot of lorn straight ahead of Askurr, perhaps a dozen strides distant.
A moment later, two of the bat-winged beasts fell away from the struggling mass, fronts laid open and spewing gore—and the young warcaptain surged up into view, throttling a third lorn as he slashed at a fourth and fifth wildly and tirelessly with his sword.
The two lorn reeled back, giving Zorzaerel room to spin and gut another charging at him from behind, swinging the helpless lorn he had by the throat around as a shield to be impaled by his new attacker.
Zorzaerel let go of the dying lorn, its writhing body carrying the blade thrust through it to the ground, and stepped over it to drive his own sword deep into the lorn crouched behind it, still struggling to free its blade. The creature stiffened, gargling wetly on its own blood, then slumped down atop its fellow that it had killed.
Thus freed of foes for a moment, but drenched in lorn blood, the young warcaptain hastened through the fray to Askurr. "Which archer?" he called as he came. "Which one d'you want me to guard?"
"That one," Askurr yelled, pointing with his sword. Then he spun on one foot, bringing his sword around in a great whistling slash to catch a diving lorn in the side of the head and send it sprawling, mewling in pain. The blasted beast had been swooping in to take him from behind.
Again he pounced, stabbing ruthlessly. A wounded lorn was a lorn who'd attack you from behind, given any chance at all.
He'd not gotten this old by giving lorn any chances.
"Wings of the Falcon!" someone cursed, in the fray nearby. Bracebold of Telchassur gave a great bellow from off to his left. Askurr spun to face him, and saw several lorn tumbling through the air, fleeing wildly amid a great flapping of wings.
Behind them stood Bracebold, roaring in rage—and all around his feet were dead or dying bowmen. The damned beasts were going for the archers.
"To me!" Olondyn shouted, from another direction. "My men, to me!"
A moment later, he added in lower tones, "Narbrel! Yon torch!"
Narbrel dropped his own bow and hastened to pluck up the torch and apply its flames to the arrow Olondyn held ready. The shaft streaked aloft, its brief light showing the warriors more than a dozen lorn in the sky, flapping or diving.
Arrows sang up at them from six or seven places.
"To me, and I'll send up another!" Olondyn cried. "To me!"
Askurr launched himself into a gasping run toward the archer, knowing that any lorn who hadn't sense enough to flee would be streaking down at Olondyn in the next few breaths.
There were a lot of senseless lorn here this night, it seemed, but by leaping high he managed to catch one of them with the tip of his sword, and send it off-balance and flapping sideways—to where Bracebold, also lumbering toward Olondyn, clubbed it to the ground. It didn't even have time to shriek before the warcaptain from Telchassur crashed down on it with both knees, to pin and butcher it.
Lorn were racing out of the darkness from all directions now, but the archers were ready for them. Shaft after humming shaft found its mark, and lorn fell to their deaths or squealed and flapped away, trailing blood.
Yet there seemed no end to them; Olondyn and his bowmen had disappeared under a heaving chaos of wings and swords and raking claws.
By the time all the other warriors who'd marched from Wytherwyrm closed in around the knot of lorn to finish them off, thrusting and hewing until they'd cut their way in far enough to rescue the archers, Olondyn stood very nearly alone, only two wounded bowmen still on their feet beside him.
However, that was the lorn done, or almost done; no more of them came hurtling out of the night, and Olondyn's last fire-arrow showed only a handful of lorn left, all of them flapping raggedly back toward the ruins of Malragard, one feathered with arrows and another trailing a dangling, useless arm and much blood.
One of them fell to earth before it could finish crossing the valley, and another two crashed down just shy of the tumbled stones of the wizard's tower, and started feebly crawling deeper into the ruins.
"After them," Askurr ordered curtly. "Never leave lorn alive to come at you again. Ever. Come!"
And he led the way into the night, down from the ridge where they'd fought, and through thornbushes into the water-meadows beyond.
Hastening to catch up, Zorzaerel was frowning and calling, "But the ruins—"
"We can come right back, once we slaughter these last few," Askurr growled. "We need not camp down there. Yet we must do all we can to make sure these don't get away and go and tell more lorn—or something worse—how many of us there are, and what weapons we have, and where we can be found. When slaying or harvesting, finish the task—or it will finish you."
They hastened across the valley.
More than halfway up the far slope, close enough to the outermost scattered stones that Olondyn had one of his dwindling supply of arrows in hand, Bracebold flung up a hand and hissed for a halt.
Ahead of them, they could hear lorn squalling briefly, some thumps and crashes and the ringing of metal on stone—and then a low but unmistakably human grunt of effort, and a satisfied curse.
"Who's there?" Bracebold bellowed, making Zorzaerel sigh with exasperation.
"Me," a familiar voice replied. "I was wondering when you'd get down off that ridge—where Malraun's lorn have always liked to roost of nights—and come tramping up to finish them off. Worry not; we took care of that for you.
"
"Roreld?"
"Who else? I'm too old for disguises and taking on false names and suchlike foolery, so it's Roreld you've found, right enough. Come on up; we've a fire cloaked for the night that we can uncover, though I hope you brought something to sear over it. I lost my taste for roast lorn years ago."
Askurr and Bracebold grew smiles and started trudging up the hill, ignoring Zorzaerel's frantic hiss, "No! 'Tis a trap! Don't—"
A moment later, light flared up among the rocks as old Roreld and Tarlund turned back smoldering turf with their swords to uncover a good fire. Sitting beyond the fire, swords ready across laps but not raised in menace, were three men, also of Malraun's former bodyguard: Eskeln, Gorongor, and Glorn.
"This is all of you?" Askurr asked. "What befell the Lady Taeauna?"
Gorongor spat into the coals. "Gone. Magic. At least she took the last Doom—and two other mages we've not seen before, who came striding out of nowhere; they're no 'prentices of Malraun, I swear—with her. Not dead, none of them, so far as we know. Just gone. Through one of those mage-gates, into... somewhere else."
Bracebold grunted, as Olondyn and the few handfuls of warriors they still led—Falcon spew, had the lorn killed that many?—came forward warily to the fire. "Did they go some place you recognized?"
Heads were shaken, on the far side of the fire.
"Could be in Falconfar, could be... farther," Glorn offered. "Boar, anyone? Never mind Roreld's jesting about roast lorn. We found the wizard's smokehouse."
Askurr accepted Glorn's proffered skewer with a grin. "Now that is the first welcome thing I've heard said since we left Wytherwyrm."
Many hands reached out for the other skewers Tarlund and Gorongor had set to reheat over the quickening flames, and hungry, weary warriors set about their meal.
It was Zorzaerel who first finished the meat on his skewer, planted the rod in the coals with a satisfied air, and asked, "I don't suppose you found the wizard's ale-cellar, did you?"
"MY GOOD MARQUEL!" the king greeted him with a smile, waving him through the doors of the antechamber, and straight to a small sidetable that had been polished as smooth and bright as a mirror.
Upon it, Marquel Gordraun Windstrike saw a tall decanter of the finest luthpurl from far Larsay—unless he mistook that rich emerald hue—shining back the lamplight from between two large and ornate metal goblets. The table was flanked by two identical ornate highbacked chairs.
"Choose a seat," the royal voice added, into his ear, "and unfold your worries—for I can see by your face that some ride you hard. Worries that are fairly bursting to be heard, too."
The young marquel felt himself flush a deep, rich crimson. He hesitated before the two chairs until King Brorsavar firmly took him by the elbow and steered him to one before seating himself in the other.
Watching royal hands pour luthpurl for them both, Windstrike felt emboldened enough to blurt, "S-sire, the Great Court... I'm—I'm worried about your safety. 'Tis your bodyguard. We've not found a hedge-wizard who can do more than light fires by pointing—very close by and only with dry kindling, no less—or conjure glows, and I'd not trust more than a score of our archers to hit a raised drawbridge across your average moat. It's very likely that anyone seeking—forgive me, Sire!—seeking your death will attend Galathgard with more and better archers and far stronger magic at their command."
Faltering before a steady, kindly royal regard, the marquel struggled to add, "I—I cannot begin to promise even a solemn attempt to guard the safety of your person. Yet I dare not advocate the postponement of this Great Court."
King Brorsavar handed him a full goblet and smiled. "You may freely advocate anything you like, good Windstrike. Your dedication and loyalty have earned you far more freedom than that. Yet I fear I cannot cancel or delay the Court, no—or those who would imperil the realm will grow too restless to stay their hands longer."
The young marquel let out his breath in a loud, unhappy sigh. "I know that, Sire, yet no matter how much I think on this—dream of it, and come awake out of dark dreams, time and again—I see only this: that if you attend the Great Court, you may very well perish."
Brorsavar smiled thinly. "My good Windstrike, I don't expect to survive to see the next winter."
Gordraun Windstrike stared at his king. "But... but why did you take the crown, then?"
The old man wearing the crown shrugged. "Someone had to, to keep Galath from collapsing straight away into a land of snarling noble wolves savaging each other—for far too many of us are willing to ruin the realm, in striving to rule it—and give those who merely lusted after the throne time to fall away before the might of those strong and determined enough to seize it. I've given Galath that time."
Brorsavar reached for the heavy goblet, raised it, and studied its intricate chasings, turning it slowly in his hands. A hunting scene, of a stag with a crown caught in its antlers, pursued by many hunters.
Then he smiled.
Windstrike gaped again as he beheld the matching adornment on his own goblet, and realized what he was staring at. He looked back from it to Brorsavar in time to see the royal smile, before the king added, "And I must confess I was finding my dotage increasingly boring. This way, I've had the fun of younglings like you fawning over me, most of the realm hating me, and everyone paying attention to me. And isn't that what most of us want, after all—being as we're noble and can afford to want more than just something to fill our bellies—hmmm? Everyone to pay attention to us?"
The young marquel opened and closed his mouth several times, struggling to find an answer, not knowing what to say.
"Drink up," King Brorsavar told him, "and let's go out and hunt us up some lasses, shall we? You need something to take your mind off those nightmares. You may rest assured that I don't suffer from them. I'm looking forward to the Great Court, both as a challenge—and as my last, best source of entertainment."
Windstrike found his voice at last. "Entertainment? Hunt us up some lasses?"
"Indeed. You seem scandalized. Well, then, make yourself useful; each one we see, be sure and ask them if they're an archer. Or a powerful mage. Or even mad enough to want to be king, if we put a false beard on them. After all, who knows where the next saviors of Galath may be hiding?"
"WELL, WE SHOULD go back there, to retrieve all the arrows we can," Olondyn said, looking over at the night-shrouded ridge where they'd battled the lorn, "but I've no stomach for it now. Leave that for daylight—but before we go wading into this wizard's lair, ruined or no, hey?"
"Agreed," Roreld and Askurr said together, each with the firmness of command. The two warcaptains glared at each other, then shrugged, and smiled.
"So let's decide on the watches," Roreld added, looking to Askurr for confirmation.
Receiving a nod of assent, the old bearded warcaptain stood and started to point. "One of us and two or three of you for each, by my counting. We chose this spot because a man here, and another there, can block both ways anything without wings can come at it. If you have a third and fourth on watch, and they stand yonder, they can keep eyes on the first two—in a triangle, see?—and make sure if either gets taken down quietly, we all get shouted awake."
Bracebold and Askurr were already nodding, but it was Zorzaerel who dusted off his hands and said, "Fair enough. Where're the jakes? And where does yon archway—right in the heart of our watched-over camp—lead?"
Roreld smiled. "That is the jakes. It leads into a little room, all of stone—still has a roof, too. Bare and empty, no doors out. That's where we've been lightening our loads."
"So if it rains, you've fouled the only place with a roof?"
"If it rains, we get wet. Unless we wake and go down that way, to where yon stub of wall is leaning out like a tooth, see? Two chambers there, side by side, still have their ceilings. We can—"
"Hold!" One of the bowmen snapped, snatching his dagger from his belt. "Someone comes!"
He was pointing deeper into the ruins, t
hrough the gap where one of the watchmen would stand.
In the general rush to heft weapons in hand and turn to face this new menace, Glorn plucked his cloak off a bundle nigh his elbow, and the beam of a shuttered lantern—one of Malraun's best—shone forth. Glorn snatched up the storm-lantern as he rose, sword ready in his other hand, and held it high.
Its light fell on two figures stumbling toward them, out of the ruins. Humans, unarmed or at least emptyhanded, by the looks of them.
One was an Aumrarr they knew, the wingless sometime-bedmate of the wizard Malraun, Taeauna. The other was a white- faced, staggering man a few among them knew to be the Lord Archwizard of Falconfar.
Faces hardened, and swords glittered as they were raised, their wielders striding forward.
"Taeauna, stand away from yon wizard, and we'll kill him for you," Roreld growled. "He's done more than enough dark work already. Or has he enthralled you? I'd hate to have to kill you both."
HURRYING AFTER HIS king, Marquel Gordraun Windstrike found his voice at last, and opened his mouth—then closed it again with a frown. Crazed or not, kindly old Brorsavar was hardly likely to appreciate any of the responses that came to mind.
So Windstrike held his peace, fielded the night-cloak the king flung at him without a word, swung it around his shoulders, and followed the King of Galath through a small side door of the castle, out into the night, and down the steep cobbles toward the waiting lights of the town below.
TAKE HIM, LADS!" Bracebold snarled. "Before he can cast some fell magic on us!' The foremost warriors surged forward—and found themselves suddenly facing Taeauna, who'd smoothly sidestepped to stand in front of Rod Everlar. A dagger had somehow appeared in her hand.
"I have no quarrel with any man here," she told them calmly, "but this man is under my protection—and no, Roreld, I'm not enthralled by him, or anyone. Any warrior who seeks to harm him, I will have a quarrel with."
