by Ed Greenwood
"Irrance, in truth I know only three places: Sornspire, Telnkrist, and Mrelgates."
"Mrelgates," Tesmer said sharply. "In the Taur Waste." The swampy eastern arm of the Rauklor where he'd never been; a dismal, mist-shrouded place. He knew Mrelgates as a fortified merchant's manor, so remote that it must have been built where it was to squat atop a gem-mine, or a lode of gold, or to hide a veritable herd of slaves. "Why there?"
His wife shrugged. "The Master does not tell me such things. I know only that his forces took it by storm. Perhaps he was riding greatfangs, and wanted to give them some experience of striking from the sky under his command."
Tesmer nodded. "Yes, I can see that. You know only these three places, you said; he has others, with a false Narmarkoun dwelling in each?"
"So I believe."
The Lord of Imtowers started to pace again, anger gone but fresh worry rising in him, instead. "Yet if he has so many false selves, why did he not quell all these tales of his destruction by having one of them appear with thunder and hurled spells, to make all Falconfar think him stronger than Malraun?"
"He's trying to feign dead, for some reason," Lady Tesmer replied firmly. "Perhaps until Malraun overreaches himself, somehow."
"But if Malraun's armies come here…"
"We flee or die," Lady Tesmer said crisply. "Unless Narmarkoun awakens in our heads to compel us to do one or the other-or something else-our fates will be in our own hands. Which means the sooner we plan how we'll escape Ironthorn alive, the better!"
Lord Tesmer winced. "Flee? Leaving the gem-mines and…"
"Dead men can't gloat over gems," Telclara Tesmer told him sharply. "And though I doubt you've noticed, Irrance, live Falconaar women are seldom foolish enough to gloat over anything. Doing so always seems to goad the gods, or fate, or greedy neighbors to come and take whatever we're gloating about away from us. Along with our lives, usually."
Lord Tesmer winced again.
Chapter Thirteen
His sword still drawn, Darlok led the way.
The eerie glows that had lit up the hilltop were now feeble, dying things, but flames-real flames, not strange magical radiances-were flickering here and there among the fallen, splintered trees.
Ironthar knew better than to trust in moonlight when in the woods, so the knights hastening along behind their hard-striding lord-and the sweating priest struggling to clamber over fallen trees fast enough to keep up with him-had brought torches.
Darlok's report had been vivid enough. A gigantic winged beast, probably a greatfangs, had crashed to earth, thankfully dead, and there were signs of battle. Specifically, other bodies. Human.
For the taciturn warcaptain, that was eloquent. There had been only three lorn. So, spies rather than an invading force, to Hammerhand's thinking. The lord and his knights had made short work of them.
Not that the slaying had left Lord Burrim Hammerhand in all that bright a temper. He had welcomed the chance to follow Darlok up into the shattered part of the forest to see matters on the hilltop for himself, and hadn't sheathed his sword.
It was still drawn now, as he came out into a clearing that hadn't been there before. A long scar of devastation clove the forest from east to west, wide enough to park three wagons or more, tail-to-tail, as if some titan larger than a greatfangs had driven a plow through rocks, trees, and forest loam alike, turning them aside in a great furrow. The scar was a good three bowshots long, a path of heaped and broken trees that shone like so many pale broken bones in the moonlight.
"A new place we'll have to guard," Hammerhand growled aloud, "or we'll have Lyrose massing up here for mischief every day."
He took a few steps around a massive tree-limb, to where he could tramp around that fallen waerwood tree and along the scar in Darlok's wake. Stifling a curse, the fearful Lord Leaf followed, still panting from all the clambering up through the trees, and shaking a numbed hand he'd slammed into a very solid bough in the insufficiently torchlit darkness.
After a dozen more breaths of lurching along climbing on his knees over hard yet splintered wood and bruising himself against branches too strong to give way before him in the blinding tangle of leafy boughs, the priest came out into the westwards end of the open area. And stopped, aghast at what he saw.
A great scaled bulk stretched from near his boots for a long, long way to where the scar ended, in a clump of trees leaning perilously over the open area as if anxious to topple into it. It was the largest beast Cauldreth Jaklar had ever seen, and it lay in a sickeningly deformed heap. Broken-off treetrunks, dark with glistening gore, thrust up out of its rolling, twisted flesh like spears here, there, and over yonder.
It was dead, all right.
The lord of Hammerhold came tramping back along the huge corpse-Jaklar's stomach heaved as he realized what he'd thought was an upthrust, splayed tree in the distance was actually the talons of one large, dark dead claw, frozen in a last, futile clawing of the air-to growl, "Well, Jaklar? Know what you're looking at?"
"A greatfangs," the Lord Leaf managed to say, though he was certain his voice quavered. "Or what's left of one."
Hammerhand nodded. "It had a rider."
"Oh. You found the body?"
"No. Which means we may have a Doom lurking near us right now. I hope you've magic enough, Lord Leaf."
"Narmarkoun," the priest murmured, too afraid to bristle at Hammerhand's words.
The lord of Hammerhold nodded. The Doom called Narmarkoun was known to breed and ride greatfangs, and this great bulk beside them, all scales and tail and a dark, spreading lake of blood that was starting to stink, was the shattered corpse of a greatfangs.
The Lord Leaf swallowed. He knew of no priest of the Forestmother-not even Loroth the Highest-who could hurl magic enough to fight off a Doom. Fight off, not destroy.
"Lurking near us, right now," he whispered to himself.
Hammerhand looked at him sharply, then turned to a knight who was hastening up with a torch, and pointed in silent command.
The knight nodded, stepped forward, and bent to let torchlight fall where his lord was pointing.
Something small, pale, and bloody glistened in the flickering radiance. It took Jaklar a moment to recognize what he was seeing: bloody fragments of bitten-through human bodies. His stomach lurched.
Lord Hammerhand bent down and picked up the largest lump as calmly as if he'd been a butcher gutting boar in his own kitchens. It flopped in his hand, heavy but shapeless, rows of shattered ribs protruding from dripping flesh. One shapely breast thrust forward from the gory piece of ribcage.
"Female," Burrim Hammerhand said grimly, holding it up for a better look.
Jaklar vomited violently, staggering aside almost blindly as his stomach emptied itself in a hard, unstoppable, heaving rush.
When he could see again, the lord of Hammerhold had dropped that obscene lump and was holding up another, severed scraps of leather war-harness dropping from it. It was part of the shoulder of a sleekly-muscled woman's back, with the base of a bitten-off limb that shouldn't have been there protruding from it.
"Aumrarr," he added tersely.
The priest swallowed. Hammerhand thought he was trying to ask a question, and explained, "A wing."
Jaklar's stomach heaved again, trying to rid itself of meals that were no longer there. He drooled bile helplessly, swallowed, then gaspingly turned back in time to see Hammerhand hold up the most grisly thing of all: a head, minus jaw and everything below.
The Lord Leaf caught sight of a face, all smeared hair and blood across dark, forever-staring eyes, as Burrim Hammerhand held it up and calmly looked into that dead gaze.
Then the lord of Hammerhold shook his head and let it fall back into the darkness with a wet thud. "No one I know."
Cauldreth Jaklar found himself fighting to be sick again, though there was nothing still down him left to come out.
"Lord Hammerhand!" It was more of a breathless gasp than a shout, out of the forest below. Back toward Hammerhold, whe
nce they'd come.
"Here," Burrim Hammerhand replied, turning, his sword coming up.
"Lord!" It was a Hammerhold knight, gasping hard after a hasty climb through the dark forest. "News!"
"What is it?" Hammerhand sounded as calm-and grim-as ever.
"Horgul and his army have taken Darswords!"
Hammerhand nodded as if he'd expected this, and said only, "There's more. Worse." It was not a question.
The knight nodded, gasping for breath, then blurted, "Nelthraun, Lord of Stelgond, has marched through Yuskellar, the valley of the Gold Duke-and right through all the Gold Duke's guards, too, when they disputed his passage, though he did not stop to plunder the Duke's mansion or harm the Gold Duke himself-with the stated aim of conquering Ironthorn just as fast as he can get here!"
"What?" The word burst out of Hammerhand in disbelief.
"Six message-birds, lord, all from merchants we pay for news. All bore the same tidings," the knight replied grimly.
Darlok had joined them out of the night, and now snapped, "Stelgond up in arms to come here-where no Lord of Stelgond has ever been, nor wanted to be-and Horgul in Darswords, three holds away from us if he marches on in the direction he's been going. They're coming here because of the Lord Archwizard, lord!"
"Harlhoh, then through the wild Raurklor to Darkriver, then east along the Long Trail to Burnt Bones… and on, to us," Hammerhand mused aloud. "Stelgond alone is more than enough for us to handle, what with the two vipers here in the Vale biting at me day and night to see who'll be lord and who'll be dead. If we must cross swords with this Horgul, too, we'll need all the Forestmother's luck-and anything else the Aumrarr or lorn or anyone else can spare to aid us-to have any hope of holding onto Ironthorn and our lives."
"Where's Stel-" the Lord Leaf started to ask.
"In Tauren," Hammerhand snapped. "A small hold, but wealthy."
"Ah. I have heard," the priest murmured, "that a Doom rides behind this Horgul. The same wizard who aids Lyrose, Malraun the Matchless. If that's true, we are all… doomed."
"Heard where, and from whom?" Hammerhand growled, watching the knight who'd brought the news go pale and flinch back at Jaklar's words.
"In altar-visions, of far-away priests of the Forestmother talking to each other," the Lord Leaf replied.
Hammerhand shot him a hard look, but the priest seemed both sincere-and scared.
He was.
"I have prayed to the Forestmother for guidance," Jaklar whispered, "in case we must flee into the arms of the Raurklor around us. All of Hammerhold, that is. But She has sent me no sign."
Lord Hammerhand rounded on him. "Of course She hasn't. She knows we'll fight to hold Ironthorn, and die doing it. No Ironthar will flee anywhere. If we lose what's dear to us, what is 'living on' worth? Nothing. We stay here, our swords sharp in our hands, and defend our Vale against anyone who comes to try to take it from us."
He stared out into the night, past the torchlight. "Even if every last Stormar or Galathan took up arms and came here, in hosts beyond counting, I would take a stand and try to kill them all. It's glorking near all I know how to do."
Warriors were climbing the hill from all sides, torches flickering wildly in their hands. With the moon now so bright, the flames they carried served more to make them superb targets than to aid their way over the heaped and strewn bodies, but Malraun didn't even bother to shrug at that passing thought. He had more important matters to concern him.
Blasting down these last few wizards before any of them managed to spin a magic to flee this place, for instance.
Darswords had fought furiously against his army. Furiously but hopelessly; they would all die, or were dead already. The children had been hurried away into the forest, of course, by a few of the crones and youngest women. Everyone else would perish.
Malraun was not in the best of moods. Amaxas Horgul had been more boar than man, a brawling, rutting lout governed by his lusts and rages-but he had been a giant on the battlefield, and a man warriors looked to and obeyed.
And now he was dead, and if Malraun was to hold this army together, he would have to lead it himself. Falcon rut and spew! Riding across half Falconfar-the backlands, fly-infested half-was not how he'd planned on spending the next score or so of days. Which meant he'd have to get to know a lot of thick-headed swordswingers rather too well over the next day or so, and hope he could find a war leader among them who could lead them all half as well as Horgul had.
However, there was one task in hand to finish with, first. Scouring out Horgul's slayers.
The Stormar had been a surprise. Who'd have thought a remote Raurklor hold like Darswords could have coin enough to hire wizards from distant Sea of Storms cities, let alone known how to contact them?
Lesser mages or not, they'd been far from overconfident fools, too. They'd hidden among the defenders of the hold, avoiding hurling magical fires and lightnings in favor of peering hard to find the right man, and then hurling mind-lances. By such means they'd slain Horgul and some of his warcaptains, then tried to seize control over the minds of the rest, so as to take over command of the whole host.
If there'd been no Doom standing unseen behind Horgul, it would have worked. As it was, Malraun the Matchless was in the habit of often prying into the minds of Horgul and his captains from afar, and was warned. He'd learned all this from the mind of one startled Stormar mage, then given that unfortunate the same death that had been visited on Horgul, and then magically taken himself and Taeauna to this blood-drenched, moonlit hill nigh Darswords.
The hold itself crowned a hill beside the one he stood on, with the wingless Aumrarr by his side. This hill had been left bare of homes and barns because, fittingly, it was where they buried their dead.
There'd be a lot of burying to do, later, though he doubted anyone would be alive to do it. The slope they were cautiously climbing was heaped and strewn with the dead. The folk of Darswords must have spent every last coin that had been buried under every dirt floor, to hire so many mercenaries to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and fight. And die.
Taeauna raised her sword, peering past it at the last few Stormar huddled atop the hill. They were now hurling all the fires and lightnings they'd avoided using earlier, hence the caution of their ascent. She was shielding him with her body, something that almost brought a smile to Malraun's face. She was his creature, now, in truth; that wasn't something he'd coerced her into doing. When Aumrarr served, they served.
Now she was rising and striding on, a few swift, bent-over steps that took her to the next heap of dead they could shelter behind.
Malraun scrambled to keep up with her, ignoring a groaning, feebly-moving warrior underfoot. Whoever it was lacked the means to harm him, and would die soon enough of his wounds or under the claws and jaws of lurking beasts who'd come out of the forest-or down out of the skies-to feast on the dead.
The Stormar wizards were still hurling death of their own, a roiling wall of flames this time, that marched down the slope, licking empty air, until it engulfed the foremost torch-bearers. Their screams were raw and terrible, but didn't last long.
Malraun smiled. That fiery wall had faded away to nothing already, and the very use of it told him the Stormar were running out of real battle-spells. This would probably take no time at all, once he got close enough to smite them all at once. They knew he was here-or at least, something that could burn out the minds of their fellows was. Hence all the shieldings they'd so hastily conjured. Yet he'd been careful not to hurl fires and lightnings of his own, to give them a target or to frighten them into flight, when he was too far off to trap and hold them.
He wanted every last one of them.
Taeauna turned to look at him, her hair swirling about her shoulders. Malraun gave her a smile, letting his growing fondness for her show through their linked minds, and her answering smile was dazzling. She gasped and shook in rapture, shuddering briefly and biting her lip ere she turned away to return to the careful climb up
through the dead.
Malraun's smile went away. What did she think of him, really? If his hold over her mind was taken away?
He'd find fear, and hatred, and a desperate drive to murder him as swiftly as she could, no doubt. Falconaar all seemed to think of their Dooms the same way.
Yet she was a splendid creature, if he could ever trust her. He knew not if any Aumrarr could ever be trusted, or if there was something deep and innate within them that would goad them into striking out against all rulers and tyrant wizards when they saw a good chance to really do harm.
If he worked on her mind with his spells, not to control but to alter, a little here and a little there, could he avoid driving her mad? And truly change her, until she loved him? Or would she always remember what he'd done in her mind, and hate him for it, and wait for her chance to lash out in revenge?
And what was the love of one female worth, bought at such time and trouble, when he could mind-ride and coerce so many with such ease, and have a new and different one gasping willingly under him every night?
The torches were converging now, the small bare hilltop ringed closely by grimly-advancing warriors. Taeauna bore no torch, but her sword was raised and ready. Malraun admired her catlike grace as she stalked from one heap of bodies to another, using the last cover on this stretch of slope to full advantage. Then he reached into her mind and brought her to a shuddering halt, sending her his fondness to give her pleasure and quell her flare of resentment at being reined in as sharply as any snorting warhorse.
It had been a good plan, this army of his. Covertly aiding Amaxas Horgul in his first few victories and spreading word of it, subtly twisted so as to communicate a yearning for more under his banner that Horgul-who had no banner, nor thoughts of needing one-had no taste for. When the lawless and landless men came flocking, Malraun had set to work on the minds of many to see that the gathering warriors gained food and drink, and more victories, and captains whom he made staunchly loyal to Horgul.
Then he dived deep into the minds of Horgul's encamped warriors, plunging into a weight of minds that no Doom-and certainly no one lesser-had faced or weathered before, emerging drained but triumphant, having sown dreams wherein monsters aided and fought alongside Horgul's army, and were things too useful to be attacked on sight.