by Ed Greenwood
Ambrelle sighed, her face grim. "Sisters mine, it's always been the wizards who mattered."
"Why the hurry?" Rod muttered through clenched teeth, as his saddle rose painfully to meet his descending crotch one more time. "Who would dispute with a velduke of the realm, and all these knights?"
Deldragon glanced at Rod with those ice-blue eyes for a moment, and then pointed up into the sky.
"They will," he said shortly, and then bellowed, "Lances up, lads! Gallop! Lorn!"
Rod's horse knew that barked command, if Rod didn't, and leaped forward. Rod hastily caught hold of the high horn of his saddle to keep from falling off, as the world suddenly became a blurred din of pounding hooves. Looking up, he saw a descending cloud of lorn, like a twister he'd once seen in the sky but lacking a dark cloud above it… a lowering, questing snout…
There was a terrible majesty in that slow, ponderous turn in the air, and then the swift and quickening dive, gray wings snapping back like the feathers of an arrow, claws extended, impassive skull-faces staring…
Hundreds of skulls, staring…
We have no lances, we three, Rod thought, or said in apprehension, in the instant before the lorn struck.
"I can't go on alone," Carandrur snapped. His eyes glittered; the sly little cobbler was seething. "So, are you all traitors to Arvale, then?"
Thrayl turned to Dombur and Pheldur; the three men exchanged dark glances, but kept silent, their faces expressionless. Thrayl looked back at Carandrur, his face a mask that betrayed nothing.
"Well?" the cobbler spat.
The three taller men went on giving him silence.
"Thrayl, when I get back to the vale and tell Lord Tharlark of this, what do you think he'll do to you? Hey? Kill you and your wife and daughter, and seize your shop and home, of course, but how will he hand you death? Do you really think he'll be merciful about it? That it'll be quick? Hey?"
"Lorn, yonder, diving out of the sky," Dombur said quietly, lifting his head in a gleam of earrings. "Lots of them."
Carandrur went on glaring at Thrayl, watching the shopkeeper's eyes leave his and lift to stare where Dombur and Pheldur were looking, up into the sky.
After watching their intent faces for some time, he turned to look, too.
Thrayl's sword was already in his hand; he stepped forward and swung, in one swift movement.
His steel bit deep into Carandrur's neck before the cobbler had even started to turn back.
Carandrur's head flopped loosely and his body spasmed, writhing wildly off Thrayl's blade into the dirt.
Thrayl stood like a statue, and watched the cobbler die.
He didn't look at Dombur or Pheldur until he was straightening from wiping his blade clean on the dead man's vest.
They looked back at him expressionlessly.
"Shrewdly struck," was all Dombur said, before they turned together, to begin the long trudge back to Arvale.
Velduke Deldragon looked every inch the warrior hero, twisting and hewing in the heart of a cloud of flapping lorn, standing up in his saddle to deal flickering, darting death in all directions, as Rod stared at him open-mouthed.
His sword was like a great flashing fang as it swept up into a lorn breast, slicing open the squalling, clawing thing even as it tried to gore him. Entrails and blood gouted down the withers of his mount, and on the ground and horse behind. All around them, horses were starting to scream.
Brushing Rod's hip as their horses bucked and started to rear, Taeauna leaned perilously over in her saddle, exposing her side to the lorn that would have torn her open if it hadn't struck Deldragon's lorn and been hurled past, to slash with her blade at the lorn that was menacing Rod. Hissing, it batted at her blade and then was past her, great wings flapping, barbed tail lashing at Rod's face, before being severed by Taeauna's snarling slash. Blue blood spattered their faces as the lorn arched and squalled, fading away in the distance as fresh lorn swooped in.
It was all a blur to Rod, as he crouched low and fought to hold on to his saddle horn with all his strength, staring in astonishment at the forest of knights' lances ahead of them that were thrusting at the sky, impaling and slicing lorn here, there, and blood spraying everywhere.
"'Ware! They're coming around again!" Deldragon roared, reaching out a gleaming gauntlet to take Taeauna by the severed stump of one wing, where it protruded through her armor, and haul her back upright.
"No!" Taeauna shouted back almost merrily, eyes bright. "They are? You surprise me!"
Deldragon stared at her for a moment, then bellowed out surprised laughter, as lorn wheeled overhead and swooped down.
One was coming in low at Rod, this time from the side, almost kissing the ground before soaring up at his leg, head bent to lay open his thigh, tip him out of his saddle, or both. He snatched out his dagger, not knowing what else to do, and then Taeauna was there again, her shoulder ramming him as she flung herself across the curving back of his saddle to hold out her sword two-handed like a lance, giving the lorn the choice of impalement or shearing off.
It chose the latter at the last tail-lashing instant, hissing in fury. Again her blade met the barbed tail, but this time the lorn won free.
"They'll be after our horses next," Deldragon growled. "Time for some family magic."
"Magic?" Taeauna's head snapped around in a flurry of hair. "You're a wizard?"
"Hah!" the velduke snorted. "Hardly. I'm a man with something the wizards that bedevil us want. I have an enchanted ring!"
"I see," Taeauna panted, as her racing horse hit a hollow and bounced her in her saddle, hard. "What does it do?"
"This!" Deldragon called, thrusting out his hand at the next wave of lorn.
The sky in front of his spread fingers seemed to catch fire.
An instant later, the lorn did, too, howling in agony as they swept down, trailing crimson flames. In the air, those raging fires seemed to tug at their bodies, curling them in upon themselves like hide-head beetles, dragging them aside in ragged arcs from the bucking Deldragon horses.
Whereupon the burning lorn exploded-and horses, knights, wingless Aumrarr and all were hurled forward into the air, amid a great wave of searing flame.
"Isk, you awake? Galath at last," the fat man growled from the front of the wagon. "Look dead, now."
The skeletally thin woman inside the creaking wagon made a rude sound by way of reply, shrugged off the cloak that had been keeping her warm, and laid herself down in the coffin.
Arranging the thin shroud over her naked body, she composed herself with her hands folded over her mouth. Between her fingers was the pinch of powdered arsauva that would leave her senseless the moment it touched her tongue; she held her fingers firmly together and waited. No sense wasting good arsauva if lazy border guards made its use unnecessary.
"I'm ready, Gar," she announced, closing her eyes. "Try to sound convincing, for once."
"I thought he'd never stop chasing us," the fat man muttered, as an armored Galathan warrior stepped out into the road and held up his hand in the signal to halt. "Still, we're here now. Driven to take refuge at last in the most law-abiding kingdom in all Falconfar. Strong king, proud nobles, lots of guards and coins. Bugger it all, anyway. Well, at least we'll be safe here."
"Tauren's merchants will do whatever they see best for preserving their own backsides," Juskra said flatly, running thoughtful fingers along the three old, white sword-scars that crisscrossed on her left cheek. "If that means deserting Tauren and taking themselves down the Ladruar to the Ports of Storm, that's just what they'll do. As allies, they are useless, and they'll never order their mercenaries into Galath to so much as lift a finger to aid someone else, not even if all of the Dooms lay wounded and helpless, for the ready slaying, because it will cost them coin."
"Yes, and they have no warriors but hireswords," Dauntra agreed, anger sparkling in her great brown eyes. "And their loyalty is to the purse, not a realm or kin or family hold. I know a dozen of the lords of Taur by name
and face, and would be known to them if I flew to their gates, but they'd sell their own mothers and daughters for coin, let alone friends and allies."
"And Sardray keeps to Sardray," dark-armored Lorlarra put in. "As their elders never tire of saying, 'What comes to the windy grass matters; what befalls elsewhere matters not.'"
"And none of the forest holds," Ambrelle said quietly, "have either the battle-might to make any difference, nor the will or strength to push through two lands to reach Galath." The senior Aumrarr stretched her wings, tossing her long, glossy mane of purple-black hair. "So Galath, as we all knew, all along, is the cauldron. If Arlaghaun rises to rule it unopposed, the rise of the cults will hardly matter; Falconfar will be lost."
"We must work against him, and hope Taeauna's man is a wizard, and we can turn him into a blade against Arlaghaun."
"It all comes back to the wizards," Juskra said bitterly, scratching at her bandages again.
"Always," Dauntra agreed. "Well, there're Four Dooms, and four of us. A fair fight, I'd say."
They laughed then, the bitter laughter of despair.
CHAPTER TEN
Rod's horse landed an instant before he did, wherefore he smashed his face hard into its neck. Which pleased it not at all.
As he fought to stay on its back, and it reared and bucked and lashed out in all directions with its hooves, there was similar rearing and screaming all around him, amid much knights' shouting.
The air around him was a-shimmer with heat and thick with the sharp smell of smoke, but the flames had faded, and war-horns were sounding. The wavering forest of upraised lances ahead told Rod that Deldragon's knights were still on the road, three abreast. Lorn wheeled and shrieked overhead, but none were swooping.
"That's done it, for a time at least," Velduke Deldragon said with satisfaction from somewhere, near to Rod's left. To Rod, the man looked completely untouched; flaxen mustache as neat as ever, eyes still that serene and icy blue. "They hate fire."
"I'm not surprised," Taeauna said tartly, from nearer. "So do the horses, to say nothing of me. Have you anymore little tricks of magic we should know about, Lord Deldragon?"
"No," came the flat reply. "None you should know about."
"I see."
"Lady of the Aumrarr," the velduke replied calmly, "these are troubled times, and I have a duty to Galath and to the folk who dwell under my hand. To keep to the right road and do his duty, a man must do what he must do."
"Agreed," Taeauna said pleasantly. "Words to remember."
Rod had just managed to catch hold of both his reins and his saddle horn, and felt secure enough to risk turning to look at Tay and the Galathan noble.
And then wished he hadn't. The glances they were giving each other included polite smiles, but their eyes looked as if they were crossing swords to begin a duel.
A duel to the death.
"My best firedance for the Lord Blackraven," Marquel Ondurs Mountblade said grandly, adjusting his new monocle, "and I'll have the same. Bring a large decanter, the old vintage, mind!"
The servant bowed low, spun around still in his crouch, straightened with an audible snap of dagger-coat tails, and hurried off past Mountblade's steward, who stood as still and expressionless as a statue, hands clasped behind his back, carefully out of earshot of seated lords.
Marquel Larren Blackraven had only just arrived at Mountgard; he'd still been clapping the road-dust from his hands when he'd been led up the path from the stables. Sighing in his ease, the tall, hooknosed young nobleman leaned back in his chair to look out over the trim green gardens falling away from the terrace. He hummed under his breath for long moments, as he turned his head to peer; Mountblade smiled silently and watched his guest.
To their right rose the weathered stone bulk of Mountgard, but directly before them the greenest lawns Blackraven had ever seen sloped gently down to pleasant clusters of spire-shaped evergreens, little bowers of winding flagstone paths, and beds of flowering shrubs cloaking sculpted stone maidens. Beyond their shapely, endlessly beseeching limbs gleamed the tamed waters of a smoothly curving stream; from where he sat, he could just see the curve of an arched bridge in the distance, spanning somewhere beyond the sculpted forests. Beautiful.
"Nice," Blackraven said at last, and meant it, as he turned gleaming emerald eyes back upon his host. "This must be a delight to ride home to."
Monocle gleaming, Mountblade smiled widely. "It is. Not the grandest gardens in Galath, and far from the largest, but mine, and well suited to me. The stream, in particular; I've had the banks sculpted this side, to make it perfect for strolling or bedding down with a lass, and I use the horse trail on the far bank every morn. Everything just as I want it. That's why the new wall; guarding all of this seems my best bet for keeping it. If battle comes, I don't want some ill-bred, motherless dog of a warrior galloping his nag through my beds, hacking at the trees as he fights off those who chase him, and winding up lying dead with his horse and a lot of others, tangled in the stream-just as rains come, so I get flooding!"
"Good thinking," Blackraven replied, rubbing the bridge of his hooked nose and nodding a little grimly. "Aye, I fear war is coming; strife that will purge Galath, cleansing our realm as never before."
Mountblade nodded glumly. "And tearing what it is to be of Galath asunder in the doing. Galath will never be the same again."
Blackraven stared at his fellow marquel, who was as young as he was, though the monocles he affected made him look older. He hummed absently under his breath for a moment as he considered what to say, and then shrugged. "My father said as much, and so did old Velduke Barrowbar, when I was a lad. The kingdom is always changing; none of us can ever have back the Galath of our youth."
"The king grows wroth more and more often," Mountblade muttered. "And titled folk who've not blood-sworn anew to him are down to… what? Three veldukes? A border baron or two?"
"Just one baron, now. Tindror, hard by the Arvale way through the Spires. He'll not last long. Nor, I'm thinking, will the others. We'll be summoned into the Presence soon, and mustered to arms by royal order."
"Hunting unbowed veldukes."
"Indeed. Yet so much is obvious, Mountblade; what has you worrying?"
"When all who might defy His Majesty are swept from the realm, what then? Will we be turned on each other again? Or sent against Tauren?"
"King Devaer does seem stirred by battle," Blackraven said carefully, "and why not? He seems good at it, no?"
"Ah, here's the wine," Mountblade said, by way of reply, seeing the returning servant slowly and carefully bearing a platter dominated by a gigantic decanter.
Blackraven turned to watch the approach of the firedance, and so missed seeing Mountblade collapse forward on his face onto the table between them, monocle clattering. Yet he would probably have failed to witness the fate of his fellow noble no matter which way he'd been facing, because he also slumped into slumber at the same moment, head lolling.
The astonished servant blinked and faltered in his measured stride, the platter swaying dangerously, until the steward stepped forward to deftly and firmly steady it and its oversized decanter.
"Wh-what has happened to them?" the astonished wine-bearer whispered.
"Worry not," the steward replied a little sourly. "I've seen this before. 'Tis magic. They'll wake in a moment, all afire with the same notion; whatever thinking a wizard's just thrust into their heads."
"What wizard? Do wizards rule in Galath now?"
"Of course, lad, but it means your death to speak of it. So, mind: I did not say 'of course,' but rather, 'Of course not.' Got it?"
The wine-bearer opened his mouth to reply, but ended up leaving it agape without uttering a word.
The two marquels awakened as suddenly as they'd fallen asleep, straightening without seeming to notice they'd nodded off. They stared at each other with identical smiles, brought their fists down on the table in perfect unison, and declared as one, "Galathgard it is, without delay!"
His monocle dangling, Mountblade looked at the steward and roared, "Horses! Full guard, to ride with me!"
"Y-your wine, lord," the wine-bearer offered.
"No time!" his master bellowed, springing up from his seat to stride for the nearest door into Mountgard, and thrusting the servant aside. "We must ride! We are required, before the throne, without delay!"
The steward, still nodding acknowledgment of his master's command, caught the decanter out of midair, even as the wine-bearer, the platter, and the two ornate metal flagons crashed to the terrace.
Marquel Blackraven was already up and out of his chair; he snatched the decanter from the steward's hands as he hastened to follow his host. The steward ran with him as the noble drained the decanter in one long, loud quaff, and calmly accepted it when Blackraven wiped his elegantly trimmed mustache with the back of his hand, still running hard, and handed it back to the steward with a great satisfied sigh.
Reaching the doorway just behind the visiting marquel, the steward of Mountgard snapped a stream of orders to the door-servants, handed one of them the decanter, and strolled back to help the wine-bearer up.
The younger man was still on his knees, retrieving fallen flagons and wincing over his bruises. He looked up a little fearfully to find the steward smiling crookedly down at him.
"And that," the older man said ruefully, "is how Galath is ordered these days. I used to think we lived in the grandest realm in the world…"
A few lorn were wheeling high overhead, like vaugren circling over something that had died in the open, but most of them had fled after Deldragon's fire burst. The knights had ridden hard and steadily since the attack, seeming to ignore streaming wounds, loose-flapping armor, and a handful of empty saddles, but a certain tension hung over the three riders at the heart of the long column of Deldragon knights.