by Ed Greenwood
"Have they, now? Well, I hope they were listening last night, when I was teaching ye a thing or two about—"
"That will be quite enough, loosetongued Old Ox! We're not back in last night now, and I've had my fill of certain vices—"
Garfist leered.
"—to last me a season or two. It may take that long for the marks to fade."
Garfist stepped back from his longtime lover—only to come to a painful halt. She hadn't relinquished her hold.
"Strange sort of thinking ye have," he growled, pointing down at her hand. "Had yer fill, have ye? Then why d'ye keep hold of me? And speak of me using it on ye? So, now, which is it? One, or the other?"
"Both," Iskarra said tartly, but let go. "These last few days, have you forgotten everything you've learned about women?"
"No, but I thought ye were better than all the rest," Garfist said bitterly. "Ye said not a word when I knotted the bedsheets and tried to climb out yon window; most lasses I've met would never have let me forget it."
The bone-thin woman smiled. "And worked their ways around, by now, from astonishment at finding some invisible spell that let in wind and rain but made the air as hard as stone to our passage, to having anticipated and told you about such a barrier beforehand, so they could scold you repeatedly for ignoring their advice and climbing out the window anyway!"
The large and shaggy onetime pirate, sometime trader, and constant swindler she'd spent so many years with frowned at her as he thought her words through, nodded, then grinned.
Iskarra smiled back. The grin hadn't taken long to appear, this time.
"So the Aumrarr have left us here—stowed us in a cupboard—until they need us again," he said, still nodding. "While back in Galath—"
"Back in Galath, Melander Brorsavar is calling himself king, and of course the nobles—sponsored by this greedy merchant of Tauren or that greedy one from some city on the Sea of Storms—are all fighting each other or allying with the royal forces. Castles burning, veldukes spurring their warhorses this way and that, creeks running red with the blood of the butchered... and we're well out of it all, Gar. No amount of loot is worth losing your head over, or having your belly slit open and being left staked out in a forest to await the hungry little jaws that come scuttling in the night."
"Huh. Only if ye get caught."
"Old Ox, how many wizards do you have to gawp helplessly at before you accept that you're going to get caught? Time and again? Galath is no place to be, just now."
"I kept hearing the Aumrarr saying all their scrying and prying magic was going awry, and so was everyone else's, too," Garfist responded, a little sullenly. "Blamed it on Arlaghaun's death, they did."
"Yes, detection spells are failing all across Galath, probably farther, upsetting spellhurlers no end. And aren't testy wizards the very sort of folk to be close and cuddling neighbors with, when you want to keep your neck intact? Think, Gar—think!"
"But all those battles... all that coin to be made..." Garfist said mournfully.
"You think there's some danger of Falconfar running out of battles, for you to make coin from?"
Iskarra's near-shriek of incredulity left her favorite shaggy swindler blinking. Then frowning again. Then, slowly, chuckling and nodding.
"All right, all right," he said at last. "There'll always be others. I'll grant ye that."
"Why, thank you, sir!" came her reply, in mocking mimicry of a haughtily scandalized velduchess.
He snorted, then lost his grin again when a memory struck him. Looking thoughtful, he said slowly, "One of those Aumrarr—the older, tall one, with all that hair—said there was war all across Falconfar."
"Not all across, Gar. I heard her, too; she said it was spreading fast enough to soon be 'right across Falconfar.' War that was spreading as a warlord conquered hold after hold in a way no sword-swinger would have been allowed to, in the days when three Dooms glowered at each other and kept any one of their number from rising above the rest."
"The one with scars said it was an 'Army of Liberation' that was marching to 'hurl down thrones.'"
"No, Ox, you must learn to listen harder. She said that's what the warlord—Horgul—said his army was. She snorted when she said it, remember?"
"She did," Garfist rumbled slowly, frowning as he fought to drag a hazy memory out into the light and give it a good hard glare. "That mean it isn't?"
Iskarra turned away so he wouldn't see the wild roll of her eyes, and managed to turn the loud sigh she was about to emit into a "Yes" that was as calm and gentle as kindly mother's. She hoped.
"DIE, FLAP-WING BITCH!"
The Galathan knight hacked at the swooping Aumrarr so viciously that when he missed, his sword broke on the flagstones with a ringing clang that flung shards into his face, sent others clattering off the wall, and left him numbed and helpless, reeling and groping blindly for that wall, or an Aumrarr wing, or anything to hang onto.
"No, Juskra," Ambrelle snapped, from across the chamber. "Fly clear. Don't kill him. His velduke may need him, when the time comes to cross swords with Horgul's army."
"Horgul, Horgul, Horgul," the battle-scarred Aumrarr replied, waving hands that held two wickedly-sharp daggers wildly in exasperation. "That's all I hear from you, these days! That and Ironthorn, Ironthorn, Ironthorn!"
"Juskra!" the three other winged women in the room all cried, in swift and angry unison.
"Not in front of Galathan ears!" Ambrelle added furiously, waving at the still-blinded knight and his fellows across the room, who stood uncertainly in a doorway with swords out and faces stern with fear.
"All right," Juskra said with a cruel grin, her gliding turn bringing her around to head for that door. "I'll cut some off."
That caused a general fleeing stampede of shouting men, swords ringing off stone walls, and pounding boots. Juskra dived after them as slowly as an Aumrarr with no rising air to ride could without falling on her face, and even swerved considerately aside when the knight who'd lost his sword came sprinting and stumbling along, seeking that same door, his face a mask of streaming blood.
One wild eye regarded her in terror through his gore, and she gave it a kindly smile and cheery little wave.
In reply the running knight shrieked, sprang into the air just high enough to brain himself on the curving edge-stones of the arch overhead, and crashed senseless to the floor beyond. Juskra landed lightly by his spasming, kicking boots, caught hold of the door-pulls, and drew the double doors firmly closed on the Galathans, ignoring the few who'd rallied to await her with swords raised.
As she kicked off from the stones and flew back to join her sister Aumrarr, they heard the door-bolts being slammed home in terrified haste.
"Mmm," Lorlarra said scornfully. "You'd think they'd never seen a woman with wings before."
"More like they'd never heard the truth about us before," Dauntra countered, from where she sat preening on a fur-draped couch.
"The former rulers of all humankind?" Juskra teased. "Masters of all magic, who chose to be beautiful battlemaids with wings?"
"Those truths, yes," Dauntra said quellingly. "Let's not wag our tongues now about your interesting fancies about Aumrarr having a deep, driving need to bed all wingless men who don't flee fast enough, hmm?"
"Agreed," Ambrelle said sternly, tossing her head so her almost-ankle-length hair swirled around her in a flood of purple-black glossiness. "Sisters, it's high time we were gone from Galath's coils. We've tarried here to steer nobles for as much time as we dare spare on men who love fighting too much to stop. Brorsavar's rule and eventual triumph is as secure as anything in this benighted realm can ever be, and more important fights await."
"Horgul's self-styled Liberators, you mean," Lorlarra said quietly.
The eldest of the four Aumrarr nodded and pointed across the room at the open window. "Let's fly. They'll be back through that door as soon as they find courage enough."
"Reinforcements enough," Juskra corrected, taking wing f
or the window.
Ambrelle merely nodded, as they left that keep behind and soared.
Only two arrows sped after them, and both were woefully late and low. As usual.
IN ONE OF the scryings, a castle suddenly exploded.
Narmarkoun turned and strode over to the floating scene, to watch the great cloud of flames and stone and upflung dust rise to its full height, rocking the land all around... and then, slowly, begin to rain down. Impressive.
The undead women responded to his keen interest, entwining themselves around him and caressing with renewed vigor and purpose.
"I had no idea anyone in Galath had dragged a wizard that powerful into things," he remarked. "I don't think Malraun—or Lorontar, come to that—could have caused that without my knowing... hmmm..."
Watching the wet, torn remnants of several hundred knights and armsmen patter down all over a Galathan valley, he shrugged.
"Well, it happened. In Galath, which for now is just one great brawl among the steel-heads." He turned away.
"I have the Tesmers to see to," he told his caressers, striding toward the distant doorway that led to his favorite spellcasting chamber as fast as his purposeful walk could drag their limp bodies.
Halfway there, he stopped so abruptly that two of the undead women clinging to him fell over. "How long has Lorontar been watching my mind-riding spellwork, I wonder?"
Neither the animated dead nor the walls around offered any reply.
GARFIST STARED OUT the window, across the endless treetops of the Raurklor. "So is this Horgul a Stormar, then? I always wondered when the dusky-faces would stop fighting each other and scheming how to daily do each other out of coins long enough to reach out and conquer us all."
"No, you always wondered why they hadn't already, and what was keeping them from getting around to it," Isk corrected. "Making one of the big mistakes, Gar. Believing everything you think is right, and if everyone just came to their senses they'd all end up thinking just like you."
The big man opened his mouth, an eager growl of irritation rising to his lips... but no words came to him.
After standing with his jaws open for a little while, gaping like a fish, Garfist closed them again. Then he coughed, regained his mournful look, and rumbled, "I hate it when you change the whole world for me, Vipersides. You always make it more complicated. Things used to be far more simple. Eat, sleep, rut, kill someone, take his things, get drunk, then do it all over again. I didn't have to think, then."
"And there are empires full of men like you," Iskarra said wearily. "Bloody map-filling empires."
"Is THIS ANOTHER of your notions, Jusk? Or one of your rants coming on?" Dauntra asked impishly.
Juskra's reply was a wordless, menacing snarl. Dauntra's beauty, set against her own sword-scars, always aroused her ire anyway, and the most alluring of her four sworn sisters loved to tease.
When the veteran warrior did speak, it was to Lorlarra and Ambrelle, her head pointedly turned away from the most beautiful of the four Aumrarr.
"I know this Horgul is now of paramount importance, and Ironthorn, too. Our spells tell us, our dreams tell us... yet I don't know why. Is this a Doom using sly spells to lure us, again? Or are there truly gods, or Falconfar itself, speaking to us—to all Falconaar creatures—deciding what will be the latest focus, the trendiest battlefield?"
Ambrelle smiled a little sadly. "Sages, elder Aumrarr, and even kings—"
"Even dimwitted kings," Lorlarra murmured.
"—have pondered what you're now voicing, over and over again, as the unrolling ages have passed."
"That's nice," Juskra replied caustically. "Have any of them concluded anything?"
"No," Dauntra put in brightly.
Ambrelle shot her a hard look. "Of course they have. Yet their various conclusions seem of no use to others at all. Nothing we—or anyone—can predict, or influence, or quell."
Far below the four, Sardray unfolded, vast and nigh empty; endless gently rolling rises—ripples in the land too gentle to be called hills—of waving grass.
"I think there is a Doom behind this," Dauntra said unexpectedly, waving one slender hand down at the grassland below. "I can't see a greedy warlord—no, I know nothing of this Horgul that the rest of you haven't heard, but any greedy warlord—passing up the chance to ride like a storm wind through all this empty country, to plunge into the Raurklor the easy way, along the roads, to conquer this hold and then that hold, instead of struggling up through the trees from the Stormar cities. Unless someone or something is riding his mind, and forcing him to come through the forest." She stared into the thoughtful gazes of her sisters and added, "I just can't see a bold conqueror sort resisting the way of easy haste."
"Unless he fears Sardray for some reason," Juskra said thoughtfully, eyeing her usual rival with something akin to respect. "Otherwise, I'd have to agree with you: some spell or other is guiding him. And the only wizards with power enough to do that are either riding with him—"
"And probably bedding him every night, so as to swamp his reasoning with love or at least burning lust," Lorlarra murmured.
"—or they're Dooms. And we've not heard of Horgul having any such."
"No." Dauntra's headshake was emphatic. "I've heard he hates and fears spellhurlers, and has even hedge-wizards and altar-priests put to death when he finds them. With him it's the sword, the blood-drenched sword, and the ever thirstier sword!"
"Charming," Ambrelle commented. "Another butcher. Why are they always butchers?"
"Those who aren't, don't get as far," Juskra told the wind. "And we hear less of them, and don't go flying across half Falconfar to fight them. When he was one Stormar swording others through the farms of the Yulmeads, we cared not. When he first set boot out of the Stormar lands and hewed his way through the Raurklor to take Blacktrees, we lofted eyebrows. When he took Dawnarrows, we started to take interest in him as more than a mere curiosity. Now that he's lording it in Hawksyl, and on, bound for Darswords without delay, we're seeing Dooms and crying great change for Falconfar!"
"Well," Dauntra said impishly, eyeing her sisters, "I was getting bored with Galath."
ROD BLINKED, AND came to a sudden halt.
So sudden that he almost lost his footing, landed on his rear, and started a bruising, bouncing slide down the steep bank.
Almost. Instead, when he started to slip, he launched himself into a frantic gallop to keep from falling—and ended up half-stumbling, half-sprinting down the bank in a wild, undignified race. It ended when he fetched up in a scrabbling-to-stop crouch atop a handy protruding boulder, where he could rise unsteadily to stand half-blinded in the bright late sun of the day, and look all around.
The endless forest he'd been trudging through had ended quite suddenly—if temporarily, for he could see its familiar dark green gloom on the horizon ahead, along the heights that rose on the far side of the vale—in a great open valley that stretched to Rod's left and right as far as he could see.
It was a valley of farms, small and odd-shaped fields bounded by untidy hedgerows. Along its winding slopes snaked many lanes, little woodlots were everywhere, and a river glimmered down at its heart. Far off to his left, where the valley widened, he could see the mouths of what must be side-valleys, carrying sun-sparkling streams down to join the river. That must be a fair-sized bridge, yonder, and—
"Hold, outlander! Keep your hands away from your weapons!"
The voice was cold, and close by, and it rang with the iron of authority.
Rod froze, then shivered, swallowed, and managed to turn his head. To look straight down into the hard, unfriendly eyes of a man in chainmail, a helm, and a leather jerkin that had large armor plates sewn onto it.
There was a younger, but just as unfriendly-looking guard off to one side, and that one had a long, slightly curving sword in his hand. Both of them had bright red diamonds painted on their breastplates, and those diamonds bore a painted iron gauntlet, each. Left-handed, vertical, thumb a
nd fingers open and to the top.
Gage on a scarlet field. Hammerhand, in Ironthorn. He'd found Ironthorn.
And Ironthorn had found him.
As THE FLICKERING glows of his spell died away, the darkly handsome man stepped forward to loom over the table. "So," he asked the woman on it gently, "do you know who I am?"
The woman strapped to the table looked up at him with an eager, almost shy smile, the fires of his last spell still flickering across her eyeballs. "M-master," she murmured. "You are my lord and master."
The man smiled down at her. "And my name is?"
"Malraun," she whispered in awe and longing, as if he was a god.
"Yes, Taeauna," he said fondly. "Will you obey me, Taeauna?"
"Obey you and serve you," she said fervently, her eyes dark with longing. "Yield to you."
The handsome man's smile broadened, and he started undoing the straps that bound her ankles and hips.
"We won't be needing these, then."
SARDRAY UNFOLDED BELOW them, vast and empty, dark ripples in the grass marking the passage of hurrying breezes.
Used to such winds but not wanting to feel the colder bite of arrows, the four Aumrarr were flying high, up where the air was chill and thin.
"Now that Horgul's taken Hawksyl, the next hold is Darswords—and it stands in the shadow of Yintaerghast," Lorlarra said quietly. "Castle of the not-nearly-dead-enough Lorontar."
Juskra nodded. "And the hold after that is Harlhoh, and that means Malraun. Are you saying he'll never reach Ironthorn? Or that it can't be Malraun who's goading him?"
Lorlarra shrugged. "We can't tell that until we see what he does after Darswords. If he goes right past Harlhoh, following the eastern edge of the Raurklor around Sardray, he'll—"
"Come to upland Tauren. Where no one goes at all except to reach Ironthorn," Juskra put in. "So do we go back to Ironthorn ourselves, now?"