Falconfar 03-Falconfar

by Ed Greenwood

  "Gar!" Iskarra snapped, slapping at him. "Watch out!"

  The first lorn slashed at them with a sword as it skimmed past, banking away sharply when Juskra leaned out to thrust at it— and as expected, there was a second lorn swooping down at them right behind the first.

  The Dark Helms on the balcony started jabbing at Juskra with some overlong pikes, but she was out of reach.

  The second lorn darted one way, then the other, Juskra shifting back and forth to keep her sword up and in front of her.

  Even before it closed with her, Dauntra had realized what was odd about it, and was clambering along the rafter to join her fellow Aumrarr.

  "I know" Juskra had just enough time to hiss at her, before the lorn made one last, darting swoop, changed direction again, and—came to a sudden halt, still straining to reach her.

  Its talons melted into a human hand as the two Aumrarr watched grimly, holding their swords out as far from themselves as they could with the heavy weight of the dying lorn spitted on them.

  If those fingers touched them, the spell borne on the fingertips would do its deadly work. They braced their swordarms as the lorn that was not a lorn slowly turned back into a slim, long- limbed man. He spewed blood at them as he slid messily off their swords, to tumble down through the air onto the helmed heads of the knights and armsmen packed into the hall below.

  "Shapechanged wizard," Garfist growled, peering down. "Wonder which noble sent him?"

  "Precisely," Juskra snarled, turning to give Dark Helms a sneer. "We'd best relocate to a quieter rafter. In the next hall, say. Before every balcony we can get down onto is crowded with Dark Helms!"

  "I hate Dark Helms," Iskarra said, nodding.

  "Come, Gulkoun!" Juskra called, waving a beckoning arm. "Watching nobles butcher nobles is fun, but also foolishness—more than enough foolishness for us. Here comes that first lorn again!"

  The flying beast didn't even come close to them this time, with four blades arrayed against it. The moment it was past, they clambered along the rafters, heading down the hall from the balcony of Dark Helms.

  "The trick," Juskra explained, as they swung onto an empty balcony, Dauntra striding to the door to look for approaching Dark Helms, "is to keep hidden until the king arrives, and all attention shifts to him."

  As if her words had been a cue, the hall rang with a sudden great fanfare, a splendid blaring that made all four of them wince as it echoed deafeningly off around the rafters.

  Banners glowing with spell-light were advancing into the hall through the tallest archway, carried by a wedge of men in bright armor. The foremost was the deep blue and silver of the Crown of Galath, and behind it was the red-and-purple of House Brorsavar, flanked by a crimson banner marked with six silver crescents.

  "Halamaskar," Juskra murmured. "And there's the lordrake himself, riding right beside Brorsavar. Pah. I don't think much of the company the new King of Galath keeps. I thought he was wise enough to know better."

  At that moment, the crown on the head of the aging man riding beside Lordrake Halamaskar began to glow brightly, and he stood up in his stirrups, spread his arms, and said grandly, in a voice made loud and impressive by magic, "Loyal Galathans, I am your king! I—"

  Whatever else King Brorsavar might have been going to say was lost forever in a sudden tumult of bright spell-bolts, bursts of magical flame and drifting smokes of various hues, and a hissing onslaught of arrows from all corners of the hall, all converging on him.

  So savage was the onslaught that the Lordrake Halamaskar's shielding, where he stood beside the king, flared into a bright pillar of flame, and a dozen or more fully armored knights riding just behind the king were blasted to blackened and twisted remnants atop bucking, headless horses.

  The tumult swiftly faded and collapsed into black, oily smoke that sought the floor, leaving everyone staring at Brorsavar.

  Or rather, a dead wizard in dark leathers, shattered neck leaving his head lolling brokenly on one shoulder. There was no sign of a crown on the scorched head, and above it, the glows on all the banners winked out.

  "Dreel!" an arduke spat disgustedly, looking around at the wizards and archers who'd lashed out at the disguised wizard— all following separate noble orders to slay the King of Galath on sight. "Halavar Dreel! We've been tricked!"

  As they all stared, starting to murmur angrily—far above them, Juskra snorted in disgust, shaking her head at all the murderers who were irked because they'd been duped, not ashamed in the slightest of trying regicide—Dreel's corpse melted into an eeriegreen-gray smoke and drifted away, emitting distant shrieks and wails as it dispersed.

  Then it was gone—and so was the pillar of flame that had raged beside it. The lordrake sat on his saddle with his wards quite gone, burned away in the storm of spells.

  All eyes turned to regard him.

  "Don't look at me!" Lordrake Halamaskar shouted desperately, seeing the disgust and fury on many faces. He waved one hand wildly at the dead horse and empty saddle beside him.

  "Yon foul mage enspelled my wits!" he cried. "I'm innocent of this! I—Hondreth, hold them off!"

  He hauled hard on his reins, turning his rearing horse to flee, and the bodyguard beside him obediently turned his own horse into the space where the lordrake had been. Hondreth's face was as sad as it was despairing—in the brief moments it could be seen.

  They were men in armor, no longer shielded by any magics, so they and their horses were barely recognizable shapes when the chaos faded. Blackened husks, feathered with arrows, that collapsed silently on the spot.

  "So," Garfist whispered hoarsely, as they ducked down behind the balcony rail, "shall we wager on the necks of nobles? As in. who'll still have theirs, by end of day?"

  Dauntra gave him a withering look. "That," she observed disdainfully, "is very bad form."

  Beside her, Juskra's scarred face split into a sudden grin. Giving Garfist a wink, she asked, "How much?"

  THE MUSIC WAS deafening, the lights a lurid red that lit only the tiny stage, and Tethtyn Eldurant and Mori Ulaskro were glad when a buxom woman in a shimmering dress, with a tiny flashlight in her ample cleavage and a very wide red smile, asked them breathlessly if they were interested in "a private booth" for "something a little extra."

  They nodded, not even needing to glance at each other to confer.

  "It's a hundred?" the woman asked, a little warily. There was something odd about these two.

  Not creepy odd, though, so she gave no signal to the bouncers in dark suits who were nursing watered-down drinks at the bar.

  Boldly seizing the hand of the taller, quieter one—Tethtyn—she led the way, turning away from the noise and writhing bodies of the stage, and slowed to brush against him with her hip once or twice.

  "Cherry is my name," she told them huskily. " Very Cherry."

  They merely nodded politely.

  "Are you guys... police?" she challenged them, a little uncertainly, as she led them through a door.

  "No," the shorter one said firmly. "Nothing like that."

  Alarmed that this might mean they were the opposite of police, she murmured, "Are you here to see... the Man?"

  "No," the one whose hand she was holding said with a smile. "We like lasses."

  Lasses? Very Cherry managed to quell her slight frown, and led them into the booth.

  With the door closed behind them, the pounding din fell off abruptly. The booth was very dimly lit, hiding the none-too-clean state of the thick carpet on its walls and floor. Around the walls marched continuous dark vinyl seating, with a small, round freestanding table at one corner. The seats flared out into a bed of sorts just to the right of the door, with a few rather flat cushions. Towels hung discreetly from wall-hooks beside the bed.

  The two men ignored Cherry and the bed with equal single-mindedness, going straight to the table. They sat down on either side of it and faced each other. For all the attention they were giving her, she might not have been there at all.
<
br />   "Shall I...?" she asked them uncertainly.

  "Please," one of the men said politely, then leaned an elbow on the table, put his chin in his hand, and said to the other man, "So most of our spells just don't work—or do odd, feeble things, not what we intend."

  "Enough do that we can seize things more or less at will, force some to obey us, and slay if we must," was the reply, "but yes, we cannot trust magic here. We still have much learning ahead of us."

  Nutbars. She'd thought so.

  On her knees beside one of the men, trying to gently unzip his fly and wondering what sort of guy bought such an expensive suit and didn't bother to take the sale tags off it, Cherry tried not to listen. Sometimes the Man paid her very well to hear very well, but this wasn't one of those times, and...

  They went on talking about magic and killing and who held real power in this Earth place, just as nutty as those guys on the sidewalk who shouted that aliens had landed and we must repent now or be doomed, or whatever. However, what she freed from within the zipper and the underwear—soft black silk womens' panties, but a lot of guys were kinky like that—showed her unmistakably that nutty or not, they were just as human as the next guy, and the sort of men who liked women, too.

  As it happened, Cherry liked her work and was good at it, and she applied skilled fingers and a soft mouth to the task at hand.

  Above her, they were talking about what they should do next, like businessmen. Geez, listening to the guy she was pleasuring, you'd never know from his voice that she was there at all!

  Irked and well aware that she had another client, Cherry roamed oh-so-gently with her fingers, licked her way clear of what had been in her mouth, and turned to the other zipper.

  Where her other hand, discovered that the shorter guy was carrying no less than six wallets.

  She hesitated, just for a moment. What...?

  Above the table, Mori felt the warm mouth on him go slack for a moment as its owner stiffened.

  She's decided there's something wrong with us. Really wrong.

  He tapped Tethtyn's hand with his own, then pointed downwards with his thumb. Tethtyn shrugged.

  Mori nodded, flexed his hands, and cast a spell as quietly as he could, muttering the incantation and performing the gestures with exaggerated precision.

  Under the table, Very Cherry stiffened again—as the world went away. Forever.

  Mori felt her mouth and hand begin their work again, this time repetitively, exactly duplicating their last actions, over and over. Good; her mind was burnt out, and she'd be telling no one what she'd seen and guessed.

  The endless repetition started to hurt, so Mori calmly pushed her away. That left her fingers discomfiting Tethtyn, so he thrust at her shoulder, backing her out from under the table.

  Where she went on making love endlessly to empty air, staring at nothing with eyes the color of smoke.

  The two men went on conferring as if nothing at all had occurred.

  "Yet with all that," Tethtyn was saying, "I like this Earth. A huge, wide kingdom with, as far as I can tell, no wizards in it."

  "Precious few swords, too," Mori sniffed. "No shortage of pompous fools, though."

  "Which is precisely why we can flourish here. All we have to learn how to do is blend in enough to pass unnoticed. Then we can work whatever mischief we desire!"

  Both excited now as they warmed to plans of mischief, neither of them had realized that Lorontar had stirred in their minds, firmly bidding them stay in the strange kingdom of Earth.

  "DARL," TAEAUNA SAID fondly, embracing the blood-spattered, sweating Baron Tindror and kissing him, "'tis good to see you again!"

  "I feel the same, Lady," he replied. "Still finding trouble at every stride, I see!"

  Taeauna chuckled. "It seems to follow the Lord Archwizard here, and I'm... still responsible for him."

  Tindror gave Rod a respectful nod. "My lord, I wish you continued health."

  "Yeah," Rod said, a little shakily. "Me too."

  "Walking with us is likely to get you killed," Taeauna said warningly to the baron, who grinned ruefully.

  "Lady Taeauna, just having a title and being here in Galathgard is likely to get me killed! But aye, now that Murlstag's dead— taking some good men of mine with him, glork him—I think it best if I more or less hide, out yonder in the ruins, until the Great Court is well underway. I take it you have other plans?"

  Taeauna smiled, clapped him on the back, and stepped away from him. "We do indeed. Fare you well, good Lord Baron. Galath needs more like you."

  Tindror bowed his head again. "Lady, you flatter me, but 'tis good to hear."

  They saluted each other with their swords, and Taeauna turned and firmly led Rod away. Out a door in another direction from the passage where the coach had passed, up a short flight of stairs, along a dark, mildewy passage, around a corner, and through another door.

  "Anyone following?" she asked Rod.

  "I—I don't think so," he replied.

  "I don't, either," she agreed encouragingly, towing him confidently across a dark room.

  "T-Tay," Rod asked her hesitantly, as he trotted on into the darkness, barely able to keep up with the Aumrarr, "where are we going?"

  "We're heading for a secret passage that should enable us to get close behind the throne. There we can watch and listen in hiding, to what bids fair to be—ah! Here."

  Taeauna had found what she was groping for, in the dark. She pushed on a block of stone, hard, and Rod heard the faintest grating sounds, and felt a slight breeze spring up around his ankles.

  "Keep hold of me," Taeauna murmured in Rod's ear, then stepped to the left. Rod kept hold of her hand, and found his left shoulder brushing a stone wall. She was leading him along it. down a passage they could feel more than see.

  A long way, straight and level, before it angled to the right. Rod stumbled once or twice, and Taeauna squeezed his hand sharply each time in what he took to be a signal to be more careful and quiet. Rod tried. They came to a sudden stop, Taeauna hissing a curse.

  "Stand still," she told him, and Rod felt and heard her moving around just in front of him.

  "Walled up," she muttered. "Recently."

  "A dead end?" Rod asked.

  "Dead for some, certainly," a cold, unfamiliar voice said from behind him.

  Light flared, as lanterns were unhooded. Four—no, five—of them, held by knights in splendid matching armor. Six in all, with drawn swords and smiling unpleasantly. Two richly dressed men were with them, unarmored but for codpieces and breastplates: nobles, without a doubt. Rod peered at the blazons on their chests.

  The smiling one was Arduke Mordrimmar Larkhelm, and by the badges they wore, the knights belonged to him. The younger man, who looked decidedly unhappy to be there, was Baron Arundur Tathgallant.

  They were advancing slowly and carefully, taking care to keep their swords to the fore and the lanterns raised. As they closed to perhaps four strides away, the arduke took the baron by the elbow and steered him firmly to the forefront.

  "I'm very much afraid, Lady Aumrarr," Larkhelm said to Taeauna, "that witnesses are something we just can't afford. Wherefore your life is forfeit. Tathgallant, kill her."

  "No," Tathgallant replied simply.

  Larkhelm unhesitatingly ran him through from behind, leaning hard on his slim sword. The baron gasped, staring wild-eyed at Rod and Taeauna, and toppled over.

  The arduke stood smirking, blood running off his sword. He shrugged, sighed theatrically, and told his knights, "I guess I'll just have to murder her myself."

  "You're welcome to try," Taeauna replied, her cold smile matching his own. She glided forward to meet him, sword in hand.

  THE CLASH AND clang of arms in the hall was deafening. Everyone was fighting everyone, armored men crushed together shoulder-to-shoulder in the hall, almost too packed to fall when they were slain.

  Four pairs of eyes gazed down from the balcony. The bone- thin woman now snuggled against Garfist Gul
koun's shoulder murmured warningly, "We could be burned alive up here if some fool sets fire to the castle—and someone always does, when thrones are toppled."

  "Then come," Juskra said to them. "With me. Now. Back this way."

  They obeyed, scuttling off the balcony bent low and following the Aumrarr in haste back through lightless and crumbling passages, out into bird-fouled rooms where the rafters stood open to the sky.

  "Where exactly are we heading?" Garfist growled.

  "Just one room farther," the battle-scarred Aumrarr told him. "Through this arch, then turn to the right, everyone, to put yon wall at our backs. That should be far enough."

  "For what?"

  "For talking freely without being overheard—and without some bloodthirsty knight or noble happening along with a lot of friends," Juskra replied.

  Gar nodded. "Right. Talk."

  "I think we need to agree on what we should do here," Juskra said firmly. "Given yon bloodbath, and no king in sight yet."

  "I don't think he's coming," Garfist growled. "7 think he's decided to lure all the nobles here to Galathgard to cut each other's throats, so he only has to deal with survivors, after it's all done."

  "No," Dauntra disagreed, "that's what you'd do. I've met Brorsavar. He'll be here, all right, even though he knows he's coming to his death. And yes, with all those swords and bowmen and wizards, someone will get him."

  Juskra nodded. "I read things unfolding that way, too. Wherefore I hope we can resolve some things, here and now, about what we're going to try to do."

  Iskarra shrugged. "Fine. As Gar said, talk."

  "Well, I think we should help hasten the deaths of the most ambitious and ruthless nobles—the ones we don't want to ever see on any throne, anywhere in Falconfar—before anyone departs Galathgard. More than that, if Brorsavar does fall, I propose that we should try to head off a messy civil war by making perhaps the best of the younger nobles into the new King of Galath."

  "Who?" Garfist asked bluntly.

  "Velduke Darendarr Deldragon."