by Ed Greenwood
Iskarra spun around to glare at Gar and whisper fiercely, "Touch nothing!"
Before he could grumble out a reply she was down off the stair and trotting quietly across the room, keeping well back from all the glowing lines on the floor. Up the balcony stairs she went in a rush, not touching the stair-rail, only to come to a smooth halt on the top step and from there look carefully at the books on the lectern.
She nodded slowly as she read from the open book, then turned and scampered back down the steps without ever setting boot on the balcony. Going to the staves leaning against the wall, she carefully plucked up one of the toppled ones, hefted it in her hand-and then leaned out to gingerly poke at the floating helm, trying to move it.
Three careful prods left her panting with the effort of stretching out her bony frame to its utmost without letting the staff waver down into any sparks, but she'd touched no glowing white lines, and the helm now floated in a new spot, shifted sideways a little more than its own width.
Garfist sighed, and turned on the stair to face back the way they'd come, so he'd be ready if two flying suits of armor silently erupted down on their heads.
"Isk," he rumbled warningly, "ye're up to something. And telling me nothing, just as ye usually do. Give. Now."
"Old Ox," his longtime partner replied merrily, replacing the staff back on the floor in just the position she'd taken it from, "Malraun has left these floating things waiting for some time of great need, such as when he's in a big fight and needs to snatch up some timely aid. The cloak to shield him and help him fly without spending a spell to do so. The gauntlets to subsume certain blasting magics normally shot out at the world with wands; he'll be able to point fingers instead, and so unleash those dooms. The helm to let him see and hear far away, and pry into minds. Yon cone contains spells to sear and ravage the minds of others he touches with his own-if they're wizards, to try to enthrall them, and if they're simpler folk like you and me, to fry us into mind-slaves or walking mindless things."
"So ye moved the helm, why?"
Isk smiled sweetly. "Now, instead of the cone pouring its powers temporarily into the helm, it will unleash them right into the head of whoever stands in the circle. So if Malraun is in a great and excited hurry, and doesn't notice my little adjustment, he'll end up with his mind rocked and cooked for a bit, not smugly able to blast the brains of others. I think wizards in Falconfar are more than powerful enough."
"While I think we should get the defecating greatfangs out of here!" Garfist growled, waving his hands in mimicry of a Stormar hedge-wizard casting a spell with many a florid flourish.
Giggling, she ran to take his hand. They hurried across the room together to the far stair down, staying well away from all glowing lines.
"The good wine, you glorking bastard," Pelmard Lyrose snarled, backhanding the flagon into a clanging moot with the nearest tree. "Golden firefalcon, to my lips, in my next ten breaths."
He did not bother to add: Or you die. That was understood.
It was almost dawn, and he had a gloomy feeling that the fire-falcon, when he got it, would be the last wine he'd ever swallow.
Now he'd not have time to properly savor it, Falcon take the dolt. Sourly, knowing some of the knights were smirking at his haggard, reluctant face, he strode over to them, one after another, making certain there was no confusion over which archers would be placed where.
The firefalcon came-still in its flask, and sealed; Pelmard nodded approvingly at the knight's prudence, broke the seal, and drained it in a long, swallowing gasp and swig, ignoring the proffered flagon. Nodding curtly to the man and handing back the empty flask, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and drew on his war-gauntlet. His bodyguard thrust forward an unshuttered dark-lantern so its light fell upon Pelmard's gage, and he promptly waved it in the signal. Around him, with a muffled thunder of boots on turf, his little army set forth.
"Off to our deaths, all of us," Pelmard mumbled under his breath, as he followed them, his bodyguard moving with him like a well-trained mount. "Thank you, Father. Mother. Bitch of a sister."
Boots and all they forded the river-amid splashings that Pelmard thought would rouse the town, but didn't seem to-and trudged up into the misty gloom.
Irontarl wasn't yet fully awake; all they met were a few sleepy cooks and stablemasters wandering about getting various cauldron-fires going, spitting thoughtfully into the darkness, hissing curses at their own sore backs or stiff limbs, and emptying their bladders over the piles of refuse alongside walls or behind buildings. The Lyrose knights moved among them like shadows in a hurry, using their daggers here and there, and ignoring those who ignored them.
Soon enough, he heard a clink-clink of sword tapped on sword from a nearby rooftop. It was answered by the same sound, several buildings over-and then by a sporadic chorus of many clinkings, each signaling that Lyrose archers had reached the rooftop they'd sought.
Well, that had been easy enough. Dawn was just about to break-or creep in across the Raurklor, shedding shadows, as it always did in Irontarl-and it seemed all his men were in place.
Some of the ground-mists were stealing away down to the river already, and if he peered hard at where he knew they were, he could almost make out the frowning walls of Hammerhold.
Pelmard allowed himself a shrug and a smile. "Well, at least we'll be dying in style," he murmured, too low-voiced for his bodyguard-Baernel, a veteran knight who would gladly die for Lord Magrandar Lyrose, who'd been assigned to guard Pelmard for that very reason-to hear.
He heard the creaking of the cart before he saw it. The first rumblewheels of the day had been sent forth from Hammerhand's castle in the fresh dawn, down to Irontarl to buy whatever they were shortest of, in the Hammerhold kitchens.
In the swiftly brightening light on the steep hillside, Pelmard could see the open cart was crowded with sleepy-eyed scullions and an even sleepier-looking pair of guards. Those two armsmen didn't even get up when the wagon halted-and were pinned to the wagon, right where they sat, when Lyrose bows started to twang.
Pelmard grinned at that-and at the more than dozen scullions who fell, wearing arrows, just after they'd jumped down from the wagon to head down to various shops.
A few survivors turned and ran back up the hill. Pelmard's archers felled two of those fleeing folk of Hammerhold, but the range was extreme; most of the shafts fell short.
As a bright morning unfurled and shutters began to roll up and night-gates squeal back from in front of doors all over Irontarl, the Hammerhold hostler whipped his horses frantically and got the cart rumbling in a hasty, bouncing half-circle, to try to make his escape. It almost turned over, but ended up thundering back up the hill, the driver desperately lying flat and the rumps of his kicking, rearing horses taking the arrows that had been meant for him.
Pelmard barked out his mirth as he watched, knowing he'd have nothing much to laugh at, all too soon.
About now, for instance, as a warhorn bellowed out from the walls of Hammerhold.
The castle looked even darker and taller than usual in the brightening morning. As he watched, mood darkening swiftly, its gates were flung wide and a small flood of men emerged.
Forty bowmen, perhaps a few more, on foot. Men in helms and leathers or even less, hastily mustered and sent forth. They came trudging down the hill, splitting up into groups of three and four.
"Closer, you fools," Pelmard growled at them, willing them on into the reach of his waiting archers. "Just a few strides closer."
As if taunting him, the men of Hammerhold halted just out of bowshot, and waited.
By now folk in Irontarl had seen them, and the arrow-bristling bodies in the street, and some of the shop shutters were hastily slamming down again. There were shouts, and some scurrying back to homes.
That Hammerhold warhorn rang out again, and another forty-some bowmen came striding out. Helmed and armored, all of these, and fanning out on the hillside into trios and foursomes. Down they came, not hur
rying, as Pelmard's heart sank.
He could see arms lift to point at this rooftop of Irontarl, and that one. Marking his own bowmen.
They slowed and readied their bows. More than two to his one, now-and glork if that warhorn wasn't blatting again, and now Hammerhand's spearmen were starting out of his gates.
Pelmard watched them in deepening despair, then turned on his heel to cast a look back behind him at Lyraunt Castle. Just one figure was visible, on the highest balcony. His sister Mrythra, watching him. Glork it, he could feel her malicious smile.
Turning away from that torment, he looked back at the Hammerhand forces, now streaming down the hillside. A hundred spearmen? Or more?
"Oh, shit" he said aloud, knowing just how swift and messy his doom was likely to be.
"This is my father's mistake," he announced calmly, for Baernel's ears. "Though my mother and my sister can be very persuasive, when they speak together. I wonder how Burrim Hammerhand got to them, to persuade my father to this folly? We dare not lose this many archers-or all Lyrose may well be swept away."
He turned and looked at Baernel then, but saw only contempt in the man's eyes.
"Save your breath," the knight snapped. "I wear a gift of the wizard Malraun-crafted especially, to foil the blasting magic of your ring."
Meeting that cold gaze, Pelmard felt his sudden urge to command the man to lead him back across the river onto Lyrose lands, to observe or outflank or undertake some such vital mission, dying away.
Something tapped his shoulder gently, and he looked away from Baernel's face to seek the source of that touch.
The knight's drawn sword was waiting, steady and deadly, its point aimed squarely at the gap under Pelmard's arm, where only leather protected him.
Pelmard Lyrose looked at it, then back up at its wielder.
"Ah, well," he told the knight, managing a twisted smile. "Time to die valiantly. Or otherwise."
Chapter Twenty
Malraun the Matchless raised his hand with a smile-and blasted down a pleading Narmarkoun, a blubbering-with-fear Rod Everlar, and six shadowy Stormar wizards, one of them a tall and mysterious figure with the antlers of a stag and a face that was two blazing white eyes floating in a shroud of darkness, all in one blazing instant of magic.
Watching warriors of three armies moaned in fearful awe and went down on their knees to him, there on the hilltop. Malraun ignored them. Instead, he reached down to the woman on her knees before him, who'd torn open her gown in abject surrender, plucked her up as if she weighed no more than a feather, and slung her over his shoulder. With the Empress of all the distant Emaeraun Empire riding warm against him, her rear in the air as she gasped out her loyalty and obedience to the ground behind his boots, Malraun turned his back on those armies, and set off for the nearest bed.
It obligingly appeared, wide and familiar-the bed from conquered Darswords-on the hilltop right in front of him, and Malraun threw the Empress down on it and plunged into her warm, yielding depths…
There was something warm and heavy on his left shoulder, and he… he was coming awake.
To look at a ceiling he knew. He was in the best bedchamber in Darswords, on his back in the rumpled bed with Taeauna snuggled against him.
Hmmph. No blasting of Narmarkoun and the rest yet, then. And the cruel Emaeraun Empress would sit idly tapping the arms of her throne for a day or six longer. He had a few lesser and more local tasks to see to, first.
Such as enjoying the last, wingless Aumrarr in all Falconfar. Loyal she might now be, thanks to his magic, but she slept still. Powerless to resist him forcing herself upon her, that most delicious of bed-pleasures.
He crossed her wrists, one over the other, and bound them that way with the simplest of spells, then spread her ankles far apart with the same spell, reversed.
That awakened her, so she was blinking at him in surprise when he snarled, "Receive your Doom!" and flung himself on her.
"Willingly," she managed to gasp, fighting for breath as the bed creaked and groaned under his bruising assault. She tried to cradle her long legs around him, tried to reach down to caress his back and shoulders… but fell back exhausted, defeated by the iron grip of his magic.
Malraun chuckled and spat out a word, and suddenly she could move, and tugged hungrily at him, seeking to claw him farther, tighter, closer…
He bit her breasts cruelly, laughed, and reared back out of her yielding, arching himself in triumph as he neared his moment of greatest pleasure-
Then, in an instant, his face changed. He stiffened in astonished dismay, and became a statue above her.
Taeauna watched rapture melt into anger on Malraun's darkly handsome face, with sweat just beginning to glisten at his temples. Grimacing, he flung up a hand to clutch at his head, his fingers like talons.
"What idiocy now? I swear, these Lyrose dolts…"
Still snarling, Malraun the Matchless flung himself back from her and off the bed, landing on the floor beyond with an awkward crash. Wincing and limping, he rose and scrambled across the room to his discarded garments, snatched up his belt of wands from where they lay atop the rest, and-was gone.
Taeauna fell back on the bed, her wrists and ankles tingling, and smiled a lopsided smile at the ceiling-beams.
Her lord and Doom was making a habit of teleporting away to seek trouble without even bothering to get dressed. Now, when a lass indulged in such behavior, she acquired a certain reputation…
"Slay me not!" Pelmard shouted desperately, slipping in blood again. That traitor Baernel had turned and fled-sprinting back to Lyraunt, to report, of course-the moment the nine Hammerhand knights had come trotting around the corner of yonder pottery with swords drawn, and come for him.
They'd known exactly where he was standing, and must have run a long way wide, out and around most of Irontarl and risking arrows all the way, to avoid getting caught up in battle with the desperately-fighting, retreating men of Lyrose. Now, panting behind their helms-full plate armor, all of them, and better than his own! — these Hammerhand hounds were here for him.
"Stand back! A ransom! I am Lord Pelmard Lyrose, heir of House Lyrose!" he snapped, tucking his sword under his arm so he could use that hand to pluck off his other gauntlet and bare his ring.
A hurled dagger caught fire across his fingertips the moment they were uncovered, and clanged away. Falcon hurl, they knew about the ring!
"Back from me, damn you!"
Pelmard backed away himself, let fall his gauntlet, and faced them with blood-dripping hand and raised sword. "The Forestmother will curse you with ill luck for this, all your days!"
One of the knights snorted, by way of reply.
"Die," another replied coldly, as they spread wide to come at him from all sides, and cut off his retreat. Calmly, not hurrying, they closed in.
Pelmard backed away again, well aware that the river-mud was a mere pace or two behind him. He bent his will and Malraun's gift flashed, lancing out and through the eyeslits of a helm worn by one of the outflanking knights. Who staggered, and then fell.
Goading his fellows into a snarling charge.
"Malraun!" Pelmard shouted desperately. "Aid, I beg of you! Lyrose has need of you, mighty Doom! Malraun!"
They were rushing him now, trotting in with a forest of cold steel swung back to hack and thrust and-
Pelmard got his visor down just in time, swung desperately, clenched his bared hand and felt the ring-magic blaze forth again, and-
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."