by Ed Greenwood
"I'll stand first watch," he said, but the deep-voiced man shook his head.
"Second," was his terse response. "I'm first. Wake Sargult to relieve you."
Taroarin shrugged, nodded, and sought the far side of the chamber, where he sat down and curled himself up against the wall.
He had barely begun to snore when Baerold went over to Daera, squatted down, and gave her trussed body a baleful glare.
"I want to trust you," he muttered quietly, "but I can't."
His hand closed over the solid, reassuring pommel of his dagger. "It'd be best if I just cut you apart right now. Though that just might mean severed arms and legs and a head all bouncing around, clawing at us and working mischief. We should burn you. Not that I've seen any wood since we got in here."
He drew his dagger, hefted it, and leaned closer.
"Well, dead woman? Wizard's monster? What if I started cutting you up right now?"
From inside the cloak enfolding her head came a soft snore.
The landings were heavy but precise, the two weary Aumrarr thumping down on a high mountain ledge half a breath behind their harnessed burdens.
It was a big ledge, but not so large that four sprawled, tired folk—two with wings—didn't feel crowded.
"We're in Galath," Juskra announced faintly.
Garfist Gulkoun looked up at the peak behind them, then the other way, down over the lip of the ledge.
It was a sheer drop, a long way down to many jagged rocks heaped below. This had been the smallest of the marching mountains, but more than large enough to be deadly.
A cold breeze whistled past. He gazed out at the dark treetops ahead, and smaller rock ridges beyond that, then turned to stare at his steed.
"I fail to see your promised inn," he growled, as the wind rose. "Or for that matter, any safe way down from here." He reached for Juskra's throat.
Rather than pulling away or snatching out her sword, she leaned forward to let him take hold of her, sinking into his ungentle grip as if welcoming oblivion.
"Surrendering, Aumrarr?"
"Gar," she murmured, "I'm too tired to do anything else. We're worn out. Yes, even with all these shorter flights, and resting between. You're not getting any lighter."
The burly warrior growled at her, his hand tightening.
"Well?" she managed to gasp. "Are you?"
"Gar," Iskarra said sharply, "let go of her."
Garfist shook Juskra by the throat, then thrust her away with a -narl of disgust. "Ye'd get yer rest better in a good bed, in an inn."
The Aumrarr nodded. "We'll get to it soon enough," she mumbled. "A little patience, please."
Then, silently and suddenly and without any fuss, she leaned toward him—and went right on leaning until her face struck his chest and slid down it to an awkward stop nigh his lap.
She was out cold. Garfist gave her a little shake, but she didn't rouse, lying heavy on his thighs, one wing furled and the other open and trailing over the edge of the cliff.
Garfist looked helplessly over her at Iskarra. Her reply was a shrug, and a look as helpless as his own.
In unspoken unison they looked over at the other Aumrarr. Still tangled in the harness attached to Iskarra, Dauntra was fast asleep, draped limply against the rising face of the mountain.
"Is there anything we can hook any of this harness around, to keep from rolling off?" Gar growled.
Iskarra shook her head. The chill wind tugged at them.
They sat in motionless silence for a breath or two, as Garfist swallowed several curses, and then Iskarra made mimicry of laying her head on her hands in slumber, pointed at the mountain at their backs, and crawled over to it.
Garfist followed her, shifting himself awkwardly under Juskra's weight and dragging her with him. He shuffled along on his behind toward the rising rock at the back of the ledge; safer, perhaps, but by no means secure. Or warm.
"The quality of inns favored by the Aumrarr is slipping, to be sure," he grumbled to the wind, as he tried to settle himself into a slightly more comfortable position against sharp and unyielding stone, to seek a little sleep.
The wind rose into a little wail, just for a moment, as if in mocking reply.
IT HAS BEEN some time since Baerold had roused him, shaking Taroarin awake while growling his name in his ear.
The big man had lain down in Taroarin's spot against the side wall. He'd only sheathed his dagger reluctantly, and taken a long time to settle down to sleep, but he was snoring now, loud and long and regular.
Rubbing arms and legs that still ached from sleeping on hard stone, Taroarin picked his way carefully around the chamber in the dim, ever-present radiance—the wizard's magic, of course; had to be—peering at one sprawled man of Darswords, and then another. They were all asleep.
When he was quite sure of that, Taroarin drew in a deep breath, nodded as if to reassure himself he was going to do this and it would be all right, then went slowly and quietly to the back of the cavern and stepped carefully into the ring of cleared stone. After a last, wary look around, he knelt between Daera's spread legs, and tugged down his breeches.
She trembled when she felt his fingers at her nethers, but raised her behind up off the stone before his hand could. Taroarin brought his other hand around and closed it roughly about her throat to throttle any outcry—but she made no more sound than a muffled gasp as he forced his way roughly into her.
The cloak around her head hid her real responses. A flash of her eyes that would have made Taroarin stiffen in fear. A widening smile of soft triumph that would have had his sword out, trying to hack it off her face.
A smile that looked not at all like Daera's, but was all Narmarkoun's.
"DOWN SWORDS," TAEAUNA said sharply. "Let them go."
Old Roreld nodded unhappily, and turned to wave at the bowmen hastily readying shafts—the brutal chopping signal that told them to leave off doing so.
As their bows were lowered, the last of Norgarl's men gave Roreld a few waves of their own—much ruder ones—and headed down the other trail, vanishing into the trees.
Taeauna watched them go, calm and silent, hand on the sword hilt riding her hip.
"Better they're gone, if they don't want to be with us," she added grimly. "Have Olondyn keep his best foresters back behind the rest of us, watching and listening to make sure none of the traitors skulk along behind us. We'll camp well off the trail, both sides; you know. See to it."
"Lady, I will," the bearded veteran rumbled, and tramped away.
Taeauna watched Roreld go, keeping a trace of a smile on her face, well aware that more than a few of her dwindling army enough," she would be sneaking looks at their commander, watching for fear, or anger... or tears.
"A pack of dogs waiting for any weakness to show, before they spring," she murmured almost soundlessly, making the sign of the Falcon calmly and slowly, so anyone watching would take her words for a prayer.
First it had been Korauth, of course, taking his men back the way they'd come, loudly and profanely.
Then Buckhold, slipping away as silently as he did everything else, taking rearguard as they marched on and falling behind slowly, until he and his warriors were just not there any longer, nor anywhere to be found.
The trail to Wytherwyrm, it seemed, was far less popular than the way to Ironthorn—and both roads paled before the allure of heading back home, through the long string of holds they'd already conquered and plundered.
"So many dripping pendants on a bloody necklace of war," she murmured, recalling a snatch of mournful song she'd heard an old Aumrarr sing at Highcrag, long ago.
Now she'd lost Norgarl, with all his warriors; more men than she now had left. The old boar himself was no loss, a beast of a man who thought that Aumrarr were far less than human and that women were good only for cooking, rutting, and tending wounded, but his men obeyed him as if he was the Falcon himself, and...
She shook her head impatiently, turned, and started walking back
to the front of her host, strung out along the winding, shady way to Wytherwyrm. Dwelling on might-have-beens was a luxury no prudent Falconaar could stoop to, in this time of Dooms unleashed and Highcrag made an open grave and war in the Raurklor... and likely in Galath again, too, before the snows flew, if she knew anything about the ambitious ardukes and barons of that land.
So, would it be the brothers Esdagh next, or Dzundivvur the coin-counter, cutting his losses?
She grimaced sourly, then twisted her lips into a smile as she passed Lanneth Esdagh. She gave him a nod and said lightly, "You're rearguard now, Lan. Norgarl's not the man he used to be, it seems."
She walked on without waiting for his reply, keeping her shoulders square and her gait jaunty, trading jests with the veteran swordsmen and giving winks and smiles to the younger ones.
She did not hurry. It wasn't that far to Wytherwyrm, and even Lanneth Esdagh would have a hard time managing to steal away a host of warriors when she was actually striding alongside them.
Though she had no doubt he'd find a way.
TAROARIN ARCHED BACK from the cold beauty he was clutching to his loins, threw back his head—and made no shout at all.
For the space of a long breath he reeled, on his knees and trembling, mouth wide open for a scream that never came.
Then he blinked, closed his mouth again, and bent down over the woman he was clutching, letting go of her hips and putting his lands to the floor.
Where he hesitated, trembled again, and slowly bore her back down to the cold stone under his weight. When the trembling died away, he drew back from Daera in utter silence.
With gentle fingers he arranged her just as she had been lying before, and with the same deft stealth buckled up his breeches and rose swiftly away from her.
He was back at the front of the cavern, with most of the sleeping men of Darswords between him and their undead captive, when Baerold suddenly sat up and looked around, awake and suspicious, delivered out of the terrifying depths of a dream of a grinning Xarmarkoun taking the shape of a dark serpent, and slithering among the sleepers to bite them all.
Chilled and unsettled, the burly man was, truth be told, a little surprised to see Taroarin standing watch nowhere near the dead- she, blade in hand and with his back to his companions. The way he'd been eyeing this Daera...
Too beautiful to be trusted. Dead but walking, a creature held up by the wizard's hand, just as a minstrel at a feast thrusts a little carved head of a king or a dragon or a dull-witted knight onto his fingers to make folk laugh. Why, the mage could be watching us right now, out of her eyes...
Baerold peered about, but the undead woman lay sprawled and motionless in her ring of rocks, head still shrouded in that cloak, arms still bound. He saw no black serpents, either, nor any sign of death among the men of Darswords.
He glared around the chamber for a long time, but nothing moved except young Taroarin, peering along the passage in one direction and then another.
With a sigh, Baerold laid himself down again and sought slumber.
Falcon take all wizards, and their marching armies and mad schemes, too.
"LADY TAEAUNA!"
Between gasps for breath, Zorzaerel's voice was sharp with alarm. "Lord Dzundivvur demands word with you! He and all his men press forward into us—and behind him, on the trail, the men of Esdagh are hastening back the way we've come!"
Taeauna nodded, giving the youngest and boldest of her warcaptains—still panting from his haste to reach her, and looking as if he'd seen the death of the Falcon itself—a smile she hoped looked calm enough to be reassuring.
"Well, now," she said lightly, "the Esdaghs managed to make a deal with the old Stormar coin-grasper. I'm astonished they could afford it."
"We can't afford it," he growled, surprising her.
She clapped him on the shoulder, laughed merrily, and wondered what she'd tell him next. Or the men beyond him—Malraun's men, faithful blades all—who to a man were staring at her, deepening worry etching their faces.
They were waiting for her to give them hope.
TAROARIN SMILED—OR rather, Narmarkoun made the lips he now controlled smile, taking some time over it to make sure the result looked like Taroarin of Darswords smiling.
The man's ruined will was struggling feebly in the depths of the mind Narmarkoun had just seized, but it was a futile fight, a battle already lost. Lost forever; there was not enough left of Taroarin to ever regain control. When Narmarkoun departed this strong young shell, there would be no more than a staggering, drooling husk left behind.
This close to her, he could still control Daera's body, too.
For that matter, with a stride or two he could conquer every one of the sleeping men of Darswords, right now. Not that he particularly wanted the mind-deadening weight of riding so many mounts at once. He already had more agile and able slaves, and each and every one of them was more pleasant to the eye than these hairy louts.
Who still lived because they would soon have their uses.
Doomed men, every last one of them, though they knew it not. Taroarin's smile turned wry. Aren't we all?
Choices. Most of us don't even get to choose the manner of our dooms.
THREE OLD MEN with swords and a boy with a rough-hewn spear stood in a tense line across the trail, barring the way. The sunlight of Wytherwyrm was at their backs, and the steadily marching army before them, bearing down on them without hesitation. Their faces were gray with fear.
Olondyn put a shaft to his bow with a sneer on his face, but held his fire, and looked to Taeauna.
She gave him a tight smile and lifted her hand, staying him for now, then turned to give proud Askurr a nod.
The tall warcaptain unfurled Malraun's blood-red banner and held it high. At the sight of it the four defenders of Wytherwyrm sighed as one and stood aside, lowering their weapons and waving Taeauna's army into their hold.
Taeauna looked for changes since the last time she'd been in Wytherwyrm—flying, then—and saw none.
It still wasn't much of a hold. Tittle more than a muddy clearing where two streams met at a pond, with a smithy and a ramshackle am and a dozen-some log huts hard by. But then, this wasn't much of an army anymore, either.
After the Esdaghs were well and truly gone, she and Dzundivvur had talked out their short, weary parley. The old, hollow-eyed Stormar had told Taeauna bluntly that he didn't mind fighting under a wizard, but there was no way by all the feathers of the glorking Falcon he was going to try to fight against a wizard, with no more aid than "an Aumrarr who's lost her wings and brave blades who have no more magic than I do."
Taeauna knew very well that amid all his crisscrossing baldrics, pouches and targes, the Stormar merchant was wearing enough enchanted things—old and mean as they might look—to defeat three or four hedge-wizards, given a little luck. Not to mention several score weary bowmen and swordswingers, with ease and magic to spare. Wherefore she very politely told him she understood, stood aside, and let him—and his motley, hardbitten band of hireswords with him—depart unhindered.
Leaving her with what was left of Horgul's seekers of liberty, and Malraun's own warriors. Fewer than a hundred men, all told; Wytherwyrm's ale-casks ought to be sufficient.
That wry thought took Taeauna into Wytherwyrm, to stand watching as Roreld waved his arms in commands that sent warriors hastening everywhere in search of foes hiding in the trees, the cabins, and the inn, with pairs or threes of Olondyn's bowmen right behind them, arrows ready.
She didn't expect them to find anything, and by the casual stances of the warcaptains standing around her watching the scouring of Wytherwyrm, they didn't either.
When she turned toward the inn, however, they did not walk with her—or get out of her way. Taeauna found herself in the center of a grim, silent ring.
So she lifted her eyebrows at them in silent question.
"Lady," Askurr said almost gently, furling Malraun's banner, "we must talk."
"Say on,"
she replied calmly, keeping her eyes on him rather than looking around at the faces now intent on hers. Olondyn, Zorzaerel... Roreld had joined them, too. All of the warcaptains, and the eldest and most trusted of Malraun's guardsmen, too.
Askurr hesitated, then blurted out, "We want some answers, all of us. What with all who've left, we... Well, tell us plain: what's become of Malraun?"
She waited, calmly. There would be more. There was.
"Why're you leading us to Malragard, and not on to Ironthorn? And, and—forgive me, Lady—why should we obey you? You say you follow the Master's orders, but we all heard him say it was to be Ironthorn after Darswords; those are his orders we know."
Taeauna nodded. "Well enough. Fair questions, all." She tossed her head, looked around at them, and raised her voice a trifle.
"Let me say first that I have been, ah, closer to Malraun than the rest of you... yes? In a manner I trust you'd prefer not to outdo me in."
Her dry declaration brought murmurs from them, but not— quite—any grins. They were troubled, all right.
"So I know Malraun's mind well. We've talked a lot together, and we speak frankly to each other. Not as fearful underling to reared master. Though I know very well what a Doom of Falconfar can do to a foe. Or someone who is disloyal."
She paused to look around her, trying to meet gazes, to show rhem she was calm, not angry. And certainly not afraid of them.
"I know his will and his intended road ahead better than any of you. And I remain loyal to him, and so am trying to follow his orders and desires. I heard him speak of taking Ironthorn next, too. However, that was before... Lorontar."
A murmur of soft curses and despairing remarks arose, and she vaited for it to die down before continuing.
"I know the first Lord Archwizard of Falconfar lived—and died—a long, long time ago. Yet all my life I have heard the same rumors you have: that he survives, somehow, and will rise again when the time is right."