Falconfar 02-Arch Wizard

by Ed Greenwood

  Steel rang on steel, jarring his arm, and cold hard steel hacked and thrust at him from all sides, squealing off his armor, flinging him back, their batterings crashing heavily against his ribs and face.

  Half-dazed, Pelmard fought to see a foe well enough to use the ring again, trying to tuck his hand back into its armpit as cold blades came slicing at it, cutting away that thumb... The pain was sickening, and his helm was half-turned on his head, blood gushing out of his nose inside it and burning pain blossoming from his torn ear; he could see only out his left eye-hole...

  He swung his sword feebly and blindly, as someone struck shrewdly at his ankles and sent him staggering...

  Into the hard, punching embrace of someone else, who tore off Pelmard's helm with one cruelly-clawing gauntlet, hair and most of the other Lyrose ear coming with it, to snarl hatred into Pelmard's despairing face and—drive his sword home, up and under Pelmard's cods, sharp and high and so utterly, utterly cold...

  "Mrythra!" he gasped, or tried to. "I love youuuu—"

  He never saw the sword that swept in along his shoulder-plates then, to bite deep into his neck and half-sever his head.

  It wobbled obscenely, still partly attached, as blood spurted, choking him. Pelmard Lyrose reeled and went down, still struggling to tell his sister his deepest longing. The Hammerhand knights thrust and hacked viciously, seeking to get that head off its shoulders and that ring on its finger cut well free of the rest of the man ere it could unleash more deadliness.

  The last thing Pelmard Lyrose saw, swimming into his darkening mind on wings of magic, was Mrythra Lyrose standing clutching the rail of the highest balcony of Lyraunt Castle, face twisted in revulsion. She pursed her lips, eyes meeting his, and spat in his direction.

  And then burst into tears. "Pel!" she sobbed, as he fell from her, down, down into echoing darkness. "Darling Pel!"

  "So HOW ARE these men of Earth with swords?" Syregorn asked, as casually as if he'd been inquiring about cattle breeds.

  "Using them in battle, you mean?" Rod asked, inwardly cursing the eagerness the warcaptain's drug had given his tongue. "No one does, in the countries I lived in and did book tours through, anyway. Oh, street gangs use knives, but most people, if they mean to do violence, use guns."

  "And what are 'guns'?"

  "Uh, like blasting wands, only they fire tiny arrowheads into you. Without needing a wizard, nor the strong arm of an archer. Anyone can use one, even children."

  "Women, you mean?" Syregorn looked startled. Then the curl of contempt returned to his mouth, and he asked scornfully, "Tiny arrowheads? They'd do no harm."

  "Ah, but they do," Rod burst out, helpless to hold back his words. "A gun can drive that arrowhead right into your heart. Or through it and out the other side of your body, so all the blood pours out."

  "And they need no skilled archers to do this?" Syregorn looked shaken.

  Then he looked thoughtful.

  The knot of fear inside Rod Everlar's stomach grew a little heavier, and a lot colder.

  A LINE OF broad cobbles marked where the trampled turf of Irontarl became the always-mud of the river ford. Pelmard Lyrose's head thudded onto it and rolled free of his hacked and quivering body.

  As it tumbled past, seemingly seeking river water, the gift of Malraun, adorning a finger now lying severed in the mud some paces away, flared into sudden blue fire.

  That tiny conflagration was echoed by a much larger flame of the same deep, thrilling blue hue, roaring up out of nothingness in the street in front of the pottery. A flame that broadened, split in the center, and widened like a hole burning in the air—if the air had been tinder-dry parchment or stretched hide—to reveal an angry naked man standing in its heart, with a belt of sticks in his hands.

  Abruptly the flame winked out, leaving the man behind. Darkly handsome face bright with rage, he jerked one of the sticks out of a belt-loop, leveled it at the nearest of Pelmard's killers, and snarled, "That man was mine! Mine to use and slay, not yours! Miner

  The Hammerhand knights took one look at the naked madman and fled in all directions, running as hard as they'd ever run in all their lives.

  "Die, you stupid backland brutes!" the Doom shouted, voice cracking in his mounting rage. "Die!"

  The wand spat fire, plucking a running knight off his feet and turning him into crisped bones and blackened, creaking armor in long, frozen moments where he hung in midair, quivering in the roiling heart of flames.

  A bolder Hammerhand knight ran desperately at the naked man from behind, sword reaching.

  Malraun spun around, letting the belt fall as he clutched another wand from it, brought it up, and unleashed its power right into the charging knight's face.

  Which promptly ceased to exist, bursting apart in a spray of red gore, fragments of bone, and shards of shattered helm.

  Malraun calmly sidestepped the toppling corpse, sweeping his belt of wands to safety with one bare foot as he did so, and told the next knight, as he fed that unfortunate the results of both wands, "I am furious. Much time and coin I've spent, shaping human tools, and you destroy them in a thoughtless moment. Well, the next time you might find yourselves about to make a shambles of my plans, think."

  The by-then-headless corpse toppled, its legs burned away.

  "Oh, dear," Malraun snarled at it. "I've left you nothing to think with. Such a pity."

  He bent, took up his belt, calmly buckled it around his naked waist, replaced the wands he was using and selected two others, and set off along the streets of Irontarl, blasting every armored man or rooftop archer he saw—and turning often to make sure he saw them all before an arrow or spear could find him.

  When one of the wands faltered and spat sparks rather than slaying beams of magic, Malraun thrust it back into its loop and snatched forth another.

  This one didn't spit; it roared, blasting buildings as well as men. Walls and roofs in Irontarl crumpled and collapsed, spilling screaming men down to thud heavily onto the ground and taste Malraun's other wand while they were still writhing feebly.

  Man after man he slew, Hammerhand and Lyrose alike. Until the men cringing behind buildings and cowering flat on roofs decided this terrible wizard was blasting everyone his eyes fell upon—and rose, took up their last arrows, and started frantically trying to fell him, their warring causes temporarily forgotten.

  As a growing storm of shafts sought the naked man standing alone, Malraun smiled a tight smile and fed them death.

  After all, when they were all dead, he could always turn and conquer Tesmer.

  DAWN WAS COMING to the garden of Malragard, and the singing, urgent excitement surging in Rod Everlar was fading with the night-gloom. His tongue was slowing to its usual speed, and he found himself able to choose his words, not always instantly offering what he knew Syregorn most wanted to learn.

  The drugs inside him must be nearly exhausted. He faltered, seeing Syregorn's cold eyes boring into his, and fell silent.

  Whereupon the warcaptain reached out a long arm, announced briskly, "Night is fled; time to be up and doing again!" and dragged Rod to his feet.

  The Lord Archwizard of Falconfar stumbled, feeling strange, but Syregorn's grip—now on his left arm, just above the elbow—was firm.

  The warcaptain rushed the reeling man of Earth along the grassy garden paths, his knights grinning as they fell into step behind Syregorn.

  Who dragged Rod Everlar straight to the door into Malragard—where everyone came to a sudden, startled halt.

  No one had seen it open, but that thick, heavy stone door was now yawning wide, revealing a stone-lined passage stretching off into darkness broken by no lantern. A silent, waiting maw.

  The knights shuffled their boots uneasily, hanging back.

  "Never seen such an obvious trap," Reld muttered. On either side of him, Perthus and Tarth both nodded.

  Syregorn grinned at all six Hammerhand knights coldly. "That's all right, my blades," he told them. "We've got us a bold Lord Ar
chwizard, remember?"

  His iron-hard grip on Rod Everlar's shoulder rushed the writer into a helpless, stumbling run forward—through the dark and waiting doorway.

  "THIS HAS GONE far enough!"

  Lord Burrim Hammerhand was not a man who lived beset by fear, or shrank from thoughts of pain and battle. He had no stomach for sitting at home on a throne ordering men out of Hammerhold to stride forth and die for him.

  If folk were to fight in his name, he wanted to lead them. Wherefore he was now crouching, anger warm in his throat, among prickly thistles behind the back wall of Irontarl's only smithy, with the Lord Leaf right behind him.

  That anger boiled over. Standing up, Hammerhand waved his sword at Darlok, who was behind the stables across a wide and muddy street, with a score or so of Hammerhold spearmen.

  "If we just wait in hiding," Hammerhand barked, "this mad wizard will blast us all dead, every last one of us! So we'd best charge him, at once and from all sides! Get every man who has a shield to the fore!"

  Darlok nodded, waved his sword in salute, and turned to snap orders. Lord Hammerhand looked up. "Nelgarth?"

  "Here, lord," came the low-voiced mutter from above. Archers were on the roof of the smithy, but keeping low, their bows stilled, as wands spat and roared along the street on its far side.

  "I want all your lads ready," Burrim Hammerhand growled. "We're going to charge yon mage, and while he's blasting us down, I want every man to try to put an arrow through his head or his hands. Bury him in shafts!"

  "Will do, lord."

  Lord Hammerhand checked his own dagger, hefted his sword, and stamped down some thistles with his boots. He bore no shield. The smithy wall shook, and his eyes narrowed. He knew just where the wizard had to be, to unleash his wand through the smithy door. Which meant he just might live through this charge.

  He waved his sword at Darlok in a silent but clear query, saw his warcaptain's nod, and beckoned.

  The men of Hammerhold charged in a thunder of boots, no one yelling anything. Good; Darlok had given them the right orders.

  Lord Burrim Hammerhand snapped, "Stay here, priest, unless you've got a blasting spell that can take care of yon mage." Without waiting for a reply, he trotted forward—and then burst around the corner at a run.

  The wand-blast was fierce in its brightness. It slammed him off his feet and back around the corner in a hurtling instant, to crash to the street and roll to a stop, gasping in agony.

  Then the other wand spat—right through the smithy wall at about head-height. Shedding a spray of its shattered stone, Malraun's magic raced across the street to hurl Hammerhold spearmen in all directions.

  Cowering against the smithy wall, the priest of the Forestmother reached out a hand toward the man lying crumpled in the dirt a bare few strides away.

  Smoke was rising from the lord of Hammerhold, and most of his right shoulder was missing, armor and all; what was left was blackened and torn, the arm below it dangling and useless.

  Growling out his pain in a stream of half-formed oaths, Lord Burrim crawled back to the smithy wall, where the uninjured Lord Leaf was waiting, arms spread wide to receive him, face sharp with concern.

  "Healing?" the lord grunted, as he reached the thistles again.

  "What Hammerhand needs," Cauldreth Jaklar said soothingly, reaching out—to bring a knife up out of his sleeve and into Burrim Hammerhand's throat, hilt deep, before dragging it sideways.

  Blood spattered the priest, and the lord of Hammerhold heaved himself up with a great, gurgling roar—only to slump down dead.

  Jaklar kicked out desperately to keep his legs from being pinned under the brawny corpse's armored weight, then staggered to his feet.

  "What Hammerhand needs, indeed," the Lord Leaf panted triumphantly at the lord who could no longer hear him, "so I can begin to bring the rightful rule of the Forestmother to Ironthorn."

  He looked up, to see if anyone had seen the manner of Hammerhand's death—and beheld the warcaptain Darlok, helmless and scorched, staring at him from the far end of the smithy wall.

  "I gave Lord Hammerhand peace," the priest snapped quickly, "as he commanded me to. The magic of the wand was turning him into something foul and evil." Spreading his hands, he added in his grandest, most pious voice, "By his blood, shed for all Ironthorn, may the Forestmother take him into Her arms and give him all pleasure, as a great stag in the forest."

  Hammerhand's blood had drenched Jaklar's lap, and was now coursing down his legs, but he could see Darlok's face going from astonished hatred to awe and grief. Good. In a moment, if he cast the simple little spell that would make his hands glow, and proclaimed it as a sign from the goddess, he could—

  Then, as the wands flashed and boomed again farther away, Cauldreth Jaklar saw someone else, far beyond Darlok's shoulder but approaching fast.

  Helmless, her hair streaming out behind her and her eyes two dark and snapping flames of anger, Amteira Hammerhand was racing toward them.

  Her sword was in her hand, and the look on her face proclaimed clearly to all Falconfar that she'd seen her father's slaying—and was now seething for the Lord Leaf's blood.

  Cauldreth Jaklar swallowed, knowing he hadn't the right spells ready to blast her down like yon cursed wizard was felling everyone.

  Hurriedly he spat out the words of his own feeble little spell, knowing the warcaptain wouldn't know what they were. He tried to make them sound sorrowful, so they'd be taken for some sort of prayer to guard Hammerhand's soul.

  "Darlok," he snapped, the moment he was done, "I need you! Ironthorn needs you!"

  "Command me, lord," the warcaptain said slowly, watching the conjured radiance rise up Jaklar's hands and arms, heading for the priest's face.

  "The Holy Forestmother is with me," the Lord Leaf cried, letting excitement rise into his voice. "I can see now what I must do! Darlok, I need you to obey me, and rid us of the Hammerhands! If Ironthorn is ever to know peace, it can only be through the Holy Forestmother, and not this endless struggle of lord with rival lord, that can only and ever mean more butchery! With the Hammerhands gone, we'll have only two families to deal with—and House Lyrose weakened, at that! Darlok, I need you!"

  The priest spread his glowing hands, his face now alight with radiance. "Will you obey me, and win holy glory? Or stand against me, and very swiftly be damned by the Forestmother to a horrible fate?"

  Darlok stood uncertainly, bafflement clear on his face. Ridding Ironthorn of the Hammerhands? But that could only mean—

  He heard the crashing footfalls of Amteira's boots, then, and turned his head.

  The lady heir of the Hammerhands was enraged, her sword was out, and, panting in her haste, coming fast.

  "Murderous priest!" she snarled, as she sped along the smithy wall.

  Darlok swung to face her, sword rising, purely out of the habit of long years as a warrior in a valley at war.

  Her face changed, and she swung at him, spitting, "You too, Dar?"

  Darlok parried, but she struck twice and thrice, in an utter frenzy, and the third time burst through his guard.

  The warcaptain lacked even time to protest before her steel slid into his shoulder, slicing in through the gap where his breastplate met his shoulder-plates.

  Crying out, Darlok clutched desperately at his arm, trying not to lose his sword—and Amteira's blade burst into his mouth.

  "Traitor!" she hissed, wrenching it free and running on, so the warcaptain was wrenched around, to stagger with blood spurting from his ruined face, dying on his feet.

  The Lord Leaf had tarried to watch none of this. He was sprinting away, ascending a back street of Irontarl just as fast as he could, heading for the trees.

  The Raurklor was a large cloak to hide in, and just now he needed to escape anywhere.

  Amteira Hammerhand raced after him. "Murderer," she gasped, just once, then saved her breath for running.

  Once in the forest, the priest could call on the Forestmother for aid. Yet ev
en if he eluded her this day, she would follow Cauldreth Jaklar to the very roost of the Falcon, if that's what it took to slay him.

  Her father deserved that, and far more. Once she'd torn this priest's life from him with her bare hands, and returned to conquer Ironthorn, it would be time to start in on the altars of the Forestmother.

  By the blood of Burrim Hammerhand, shed by an unholy traitor, she would see this done.

  IT BLAZED BRIGHTLY, an arch of cold white fire flickering silently in this otherwise dark chamber of Yintaerghast. Darknesses coiled like smoke in the room's farthest corners, but he already knew they were echoes of the gate's magic, not lurking menaces. Unless, of course, he chose to make them so. Narmarkoun folded his scaly blue arms across his chest and smiled. This was going to be sheer glee. Plundering one world—perhaps even conquering it—to master another.

  He'd anchored the dream-gate in Rod Everlar's words and descriptions. The man couldn't have been lying—no one could lie with that much urlivvin in them—but he could be insane.

  Narmarkoun shrugged. Yet if the man of "Earth" was, what was lost? Six Dark Helms and a lorn, and he had nigh-countless to spare of both.

  He'd given those six their orders and sent them on their way jovially, letting nothing into his voice, face, or manner that could give them any hint he might be sending them to their doom.

  Not that he thought he was. This Earth should be just as the weak-minded man who hailed from it said it was; the man hadn't the wits to knowingly deceive anyone, even without the urlivvin.

  Yet now it was time for someone bright enough to become a Doom of Falconfar to add his little touch. A lorn, sent after the unwitting Dark Helms to spy on them and see what really befell, rather than what they'd choose to report back to him.

  Smiling, Narmarkoun strode to greet his lorn. It clicked its eerily birdlike way to join him, talons clacking on the stone floor of Yintaerghast, batlike wings folded tightly about itself, barbed tail arched up its back. Respectful—in as much as a horned, mouthless skull-face could show respect. Its eyes were downcast and submissive, its slate-gray head bent, apprehensive as to why the Doom it obeyed was now approaching a second time to go over orders given earlier.