by Ed Greenwood
Stone and slate shingles tried to bend, with an almost human shriek, and then shattered into scores of pieces and fell apart, creating a brief rain of tumbling shards and leaving the ponderous beast holding nothing at all.
Its latest attack had wrought something else. Well down the stair from Rod, below a landing now choked with tumbled ceiling-beams, a long sliver of ceiling had been torn away, so that someone running down the stair could leap sideways through the tapering gap, into the darkness below. Where there was a room, presumably—quite possibly a ready-made tomb, if the greatfangs' assault kept up—but better shelter than the open air he was standing up in now, alone and prominent on the stair, with two smaller greatfangs headed his way.
Rod dashed down the stairs, leaping heaps of rubble or skidding through them on his boot heels, like an out-of-control skier about to crash, where they formed drifts too large and deep to jump over or dodge. One of the greatfangs was definitely heading for him, veering from what it had been doing to open a fanged mouth that wasn't the huge cavern of its two bigger brethren, but still the size of a grand pair of double doors.
And definitely large enough to bite him in two in one swift lunge.
Rod had time enough to get a very good look at that mouth, and its fringe of sharp fangs—the largest were as long as his arms— before he had to duck and wriggle and bruisingly slam his way through a tangle of fallen beams. Whereupon, as he struggled free of them, gasping, the greatfangs looming up like a huge dark curtain overhead, the narrow gap was right in front of him.
He launched himself into it head-first, quickly raising his hands to shield his face and throat.
One wrist banged numbingly on the edge of the gap as he went through it, but he had time, in the long plunge that followed, to get both hands up.
He fell a long way in the darkness. His landing—
—Was a crash through an unseen awning or canopy, which held him for the merest of moments before tearing with an angry sound and choking and blinding him with swirling dust. Then he slammed into what felt like a mattress—cloth and straw and ropes that groaned and held for agonizing moments ere they snapped with strange singing sighs—and slammed with it into something beyond, something hard, flat and unyielding.
The floor, Rod concluded brilliantly, in the last moment before the worst of the choking took him, and he writhed and spasmed helplessly in the dust, lungs and throat afire and precious air nowhere to be found. He rolled desperately, blind and in agony and just wanting to get away from the dust.
Once, long ago, on a school trip, Rod had spent a few memorable minutes wallowing in a great box of foam mattress stuffing, giggling but helpless, and the dust roiling around him now felt about like that. He rolled and rolled, clawing at the floor to try to move faster, shuddering at the agony in his lungs, panting but unable to sob...
Until it all ended, and he could breathe.
And cough. And cough some more, curling up in a helpless ball to hack, and retch, and then spew his guts out.
Or so it felt, as he rolled weakly on into the darkness, just trying to get farther from the dust—and the faint light of the sky he could now see, through swimming eyes, somewhere above and behind him.
Timbers groaned, a little way off in one direction, rising to a shriek and breaking off into dull, floor-shaking crashes. The greatfangs demolition crew were still at work.
Another crash, this one closer. Tomb indeed, brought right down on his head, if he didn't move.
Still coughing, Rod forced his eyes open and tried to sit up. The crashing he was hearing was coming from right there—and there, in this now-dimly-seen room, was a place where the wall was bulging outward as he watched.
To break, jaggedly, showering the room with fieldstones, mortar dust, and splintered wood that a moment ago had been paneling; a tumbling cloud of wreckage that fell away from a row of dark, curving knives that Rod recognized all too well as greatfangs talons.
Talons now sweeping across the room at him, even as a scaly and sinuous neck looped in the air above, to bring one cruel eye to peer in at him.
Sighing out a curse, Rod Everlar stared back at it and made a rude gesture before hurling himself into a frantic roll again.
He was heading for the unseen, unknown far end of the room— but he was really just striving to get away.
It was all happening so fast.
The talons swerved toward him, the body of the greatfangs blotted out all light, and Rod tried to console himself with the thought that the beast was flying overhead; it would be past and gone in another moment.
The trick would be living through that moment.
IT WAS STILL raining broken branches, amid the gunshot cracks of dead limbs as they struck lower trees, when the lorn swooped in.
Straight through all the shards and showers of rotten wood and disintegrating bark, plunging toward where they'd last seen Dauntra—with Iskarra grimly clinging to the carry-harness beneath and behind her.
The Aumrarr and her cargo were now nowhere to be seen, though there was much thrashing in tangles of dead wood, below. The lorn found nothing but endless trees, and circled back to the chaos. Quieter, now, with only a few branches falling free from where they'd caught to descend amid smaller crashes. The dust of disintegrated wood hung in the air in a heavy cloud, drifting to the forest floor.
Where the two winged women must already be, barring some strange Aumrarr magic. Gliding cautiously lower, the lorn waved to each other to get right down under the wooded canopy so as to get a proper look.
There were well over a dozen of them, Garfist concluded sourly, peering up through the drifting dust. He stood above an untidy pile of dead branches, many of them still bearing leaves or needles, that he'd heaped over Juskra.
Who was now glaring up at him fiercely for doing so—and for planting one of his boots firmly on her chest, to keep her there—but seemed too dazed to even hiss a protest, much less struggle to her feet. Garfist had already plucked her sword out of its sheath and planted it point-first in the rotten trunk of a fallen tree right beside him, to have ready in case he needed a replacement for his own blade. Her wings—bruised and worse—were so tangled up in all the fallen tree-wreckage that she couldn't hope to get herself upright without help, even before he started tramping all over what was holding her down.
He gave the scarred Aumrarr a twisted grin—just as she went limp, and her eyes closed.
Garfist shrugged—and then stiffened, going into a crouch, as something moved behind the trunk of the huge tree behind Juskra. A living tree, as solid and unyielding as a castle wall—that she might have flown them both face-first into if her collision with the dead forest giant hadn't set her to tumbling instead.
Two faces slid into view, peering cautiously around opposite sides of the tree trunk. Fortunately, they were faces Garfist knew: Dauntra and Iskarra, both with worried frowns on their faces and drawn knives gleaming in their hands.
They pointed unnecessarily at the sky to warn him of the lorn; Garfist nodded and waved at them to get their backs against the tree and move around its trunk to stand on either side of him.
He was still waving one large and hairy hand when the first lorn bounded down out of the sky to land feet first in heaped dead branches with a loud snapping and crackling—and Garfist swung wildly at it with his sword, and slashed its throat out before it had time to catch its balance or do anything else. Lorn might have mouthless skull-faces, but they had throats that could be cut. In fact, aside from the skull-faces, the bat-wings, and the tails, they were built very like men.
And men, Garfist knew very well how to kill.
With brutal, growling efficiency he launched himself across the tangled deadwood, swinging his sword as he went, and succeeded in slicing open a slate-gray lorn forearm that had been hastily raised from the scabbard it had been tugging at, to shield its throat. Then a bough suddenly rolled over beneath his boot and Garfist crashed helplessly down against the lorn's shins.
The creature toppled helplessly forward onto him, leaving its throat an easy target for Dauntra, as she sprang forward with her dagger.
Behind her, Iskarra whirled in another crackling of dead branches, and swayed aside from the charge of a second lorn. Who suffered the same fate as Garfist, off-balance already from slashing at a woman who was much slimmer than it had thought, and who could twist and sway with uncanny balance. Iskarra sprang onto the lorn's back, stabbed down into its wing-muscles and jerked her dagger back out again, and prepared—as the lorn she'd just wounded bucked and wallowed under her, shouting in startled pain—to meet an onrushing third and fourth lorn.
One of whom promptly fell, only to roll back and well away from the fray before anyone could reach it with a knife, leaving her facing just one. It hesitated, slowing to draw a dagger to go with its sword, and crouched cautiously behind them both as it advanced.
This won Iskarra time enough to plunge her dagger hilt-deep into the lorn she was riding—and her second stab went into the back of its neck, causing it to spasm violently and slump into stillness.
By which time Dauntra was charging up and past her, amid snapping and thrashing branches, to slash aside the cautious lorn's sword with her own, driving it back.
A dozen more lorn had just landed, giving the withdrawing creature hisses of scorn, and shouldered forward in a group. These skull-faces, too, were trusting in swords and daggers rather than their own formidable talons, and they were eight strong now, with the lorn already on the tree-top both joining them.
Dauntra stood her ground alone, facing them with apparent unconcern. Iskarra shot a glance behind her—in time to see a similar group of lorn advancing in menacing unison on Garfist. He was murmuring curses under his breath in a non-stop flow; a sure sign he was beginning to feel afraid.
He retreated a step, and though mouthless skull-faces can't grin, something gleeful spread across the lorn faces facing him—and one lorn, a shade larger than the rest, strode forward out of the carefully advancing line to challenge Garfist with a flourish.
Garfist pictured the rising sun, struck his own "Have at ye!" pose, and when the expected lunge came, sidestepped with deceptive speed for his bulk, saw the glow of the ring on his finger, and launched himself into his own lunge, reaching—and slapping— the lorn's swordarm.
The ring flashed and went dark, the lorn collapsed in a limp heap, and Garfist announced loudly and in the most satisfied tone he could manage, "There! That's the one I'll eat first."
The lorn facing him shied back like so many frightened horses, jerking up their heads and shooting questioning glances at each other. Humans ate lorn?
"With sauce," Garfist added with relish, as if anticipating the most flavorful feast in all Falconfar, striking a nonchalant pose as he leant on his sword and drove it through the downed lorn's slate-gray neck, nigh-severing it.
Then something seemed to occur to him, belatedly and suddenly. "Ah, but I'm remiss in my manners!" he exclaimed aloud. "I have companions, and they'll be hungry too!"
Tugging forth his blade, Garfist swung it high with a flourish, flicking blood from its freshly drenched tip, and announced, "I'll need to slay more lorn, by the Falcon! And, look ye! By that very favor of the Hunting Soarer, here be some, right handy to my steel!"
He let out a roar of laughter and started wading forward through dead and fallen tree-boughs in a deafening cacophony of sharp cracks, whirling his blade around him as wildly as a Stormar tavern-dancer flourishing her discarded garments. Despite themselves, the lorn gave way, hissing in uncertainty and alarm—until one of them tossed his head, let out a growl that sounded astonishingly like Garfist's own growls, and charged to meet the burly onetime panderer.
Gar slipped, staggered, sagged under a thrusting lorn blade as if by accident—and surged up under the lorn's guard with a triumphant roar, to slide his sword across its throat with sudden vigor. Then he seized hold of the skull-like head as blood spurted all over him, and thrust it back until the neck snapped and the lorn hung lifeless and loose from his hand.
He let go, leaving the dead lorn to crash down in front of his boots, bounce, and roll to a stop, and announced briskly, "Well, that's a beginning, but there're more yet, by the Falcon, an'—"
With a chorus of shrill cries, the lorn facing Dauntra and Iskarra charged them, those facing Garfist took heart from that and plunged forward too—and Iskarra deftly caught hold of Garfist's elbow and tugged him aside, back against the wall-like trunk of the tree. For the briefest of moments, lorn charged headlong into lorn, slashing and stabbing. Collecting themselves, they turned, amid an ugly gurgling chorus, to face the Aumrarr and the two humans.
Dauntra gave them a sweet smile, slid the only ring she wore off her finger, kissed it, and murmured, "Death steel, before me and—away!"
The ring faded away in her fingertips, trailing into nothingness in a wisp of smoke.
As the lorn surged forward again, the air in front of her shimmered, became bright with whirling sword-blades arranged in a plane before her—and moved inexorably away from her breast, straight back through the lorn toward the trees beyond.
The lorn suddenly become staggering, disembodied legs and a bright, drifting mist of blood. The darkened but still whirling swords moaned on, across the empty air until they were shredding leaves and branches and another huge tree trunk.
With a deepening groan, the vast garandarwood gave way, vanishing in a swathe of destruction that filled the air with bark-shards and sawdust. Lorn legs toppled grotesquely—and a moment later, in a slow and ponderous lean, the trunk fell, too.
Straight at Garfist Gulkoun, who was busily dispatching the only lorn to avoid Dauntra's deadly magic, and only looked up .vhen the tree's shadow fell on him.
"Gar!" Iskarra cried. "Get over here! Now!"
Beside her, Dauntra was clawing aside branches to try to uncover "uskra. The falling tree shouldn't strike anywhere near them, but if the projecting branches catch and the tree rolls—
With a deep and ground-shaking crash, the garandarwood struck the bed of fallen boughs and crushed them, bouncing only :nce amid a pinwheeling cloud of broken branches, ere it sank solidly down into the damp leaf-mold of the Raurklor. Echoes of its crashing fall came back to them from distant trees, and then near-silence fell, a sudden calm in which the moan of the conjured swords could be heard dying away as the magic of the ring exhausted itself. The swords claimed another sapling, but it caught in other trees in its fall, making almost no sound at all.
"Any more lorn?" Iskarra asked Garfist accusingly, as if their attackers had somehow been his fault.
Gar looked around, hefting his sword and trying to hear anything suspicious, then shrugged. "Sneaky silent ones, perhaps. No others."
"Keep watch," she commanded crisply, and turned back to helping Dauntra unearth the senseless Juskra. She'd been trodden on many times during the fray, under her blanket of fallen branches, but looked no worse for wear.
Once they had her clear of it all—her wings stretched a long way, and Dauntra insisted on lifting everything clear of them, not dragging her fellow Aumrarr out from under anything—Iskarra caught hold of Dauntra's wrist and stared hard at the long, shapely Aumrarr fingers.
"No," Dauntra told her in a dry voice. "Unlike what you'll hear in most fancy-tales, I'm not wearing any more magic rings. Not even invisible ones."
"You weren't wearing that one, earlier," Iskarra snapped. "I looked."
"No, I wasn't. That wasn't Aumrarr-work, mind. It's something House Lyrose left lying around carelessly unattended—but, I'll admit, fairly well hidden; 'tis just that nobles are so predictable, when they try to be clever—that I, ah, confiscated for the greater good."
"Ours, you mean," Iskarra said wryly.
"As it happens, yes," Dauntra agreed almost smugly.
"And have ye any more little magic tricks ye've, ah, forgotten to tell us about?" Garfist growled, from right behind her.
Not rising or turning her head t
o look at him, the most beautiful of the Aumrarr smiled sweetly. "No. From now on, fat roaring man, you're on your own."
TALONS SHRIEKED ACROSS flagstones not far behind him, then tore away the last of the ceiling as the greatfangs flew on. There was now enough light in the room that Rod could see two plain, dark, and narrow doors set into the stone wall. He scrambled to his feet and tore the left one open.
The door groaned open, its frame creaking, to reveal another dim, unfamiliar room beyond. Nothing alive looked to be moving or turning to look at Rod, and he could see more doors, so he plunged into the room and hastened across it.
Behind him, there were more—thankfully distant—rending sounds, followed by smaller crashes, and the unmistakable hollow noise of a wooden beam bouncing on stone. The greatfangs were still tearing Malragard apart, like beggars swarming over a food-basket.
Rod tore open another door, and then the one beside it, but both of the rooms revealed to him looked much the same. A few chairs and tables, otherwise empty, bare stone walls...
He chose the one that looked to have more doors in its walls and rushed on.
More talons burst through the ceiling by his head and sliced their swift way across the room, with a shriek like a table saw in pain, as Rod reached one of those doors at the far end of the room and tugged it open.
Or tried to. It was stuck, its frame sagging down onto it as the fitted blocks of stone above broke apart and shifted. He'd have had to be a greatfangs to be strong enough to shove it open more than the few inches he'd already managed.
Rod reeled away from the door—as slabs of stone crashed down here and there, freed from above by the busy greatfangs—and tried the next one.
It opened so easily that Rod's mighty tug almost spilled him helplessly across the room, under a quickening fall of stone that was shattering the flagstones and sending jagged shards tumbling through the air in all directions.
Rod winced, clinging to the door with frantic fingertips, then growled up at the groaning, bulging ceiling overhead, or rather at the greatfangs now beating its wings thunderously somewhere beyond it. "Hell of an inferior desecrator you are!"