by Ed Greenwood
"I agree," Iskarra said quickly. "Him I would like to see on Galath's throne."
Garfist nodded. "So, now, tell me one thing: why did ye Aumrarr not just put him on that throne, long ago, an' avoid all this?"
Juskra hesitated, but Dauntra said to her, "Speak, Sister. The time for secrets is past."
The scarred Aumrarr sighed and nodded. "We—we Aumrarr— came to suspect, some time ago, that he'd fallen under the sway of a Doom. Which meant, once encrowned, he'd be as much a tyrant, or waste, as Devaer was. We need only trick him into a swift and simple test, to make sure no one else has taken him over now that the Dooms are all dead."
"Right, I agree—an' we all agree, hey?" Garfist asked briskly. "So let's get ourselves back to that balcony, an' see who's died while we've been away. I don't get to see high-nosed lords slaughtered by the dozens every day, ye know!"
They all hastened back the way they'd come. Under their boots, as they trotted, Galathgard shook more than once, the stones rattling under deeper thunders. The wizards were settling down to work.
LARKHELM'S SNEER HELD, but as Taeauna strode forward, he backed away just as swiftly, his knights parting to let him pass through, and closing in front of him, holding out their lanterns like shields.
Taeauna never slowed.
Swords thrust at her, but she flung herself to the left and chopped backhand at the head of the leftmost knight.
He cursed and swung himself all the way around, barely parrying—and her foot hooked his heel and brought him crashing to the floor, Taeauna ducking past him and thrusting her sword up into the next knight's neck and jaw as she went.
He tried to scream but managed only a gurgle, and staggered, tripping over the fallen knight—who was frantically trying to crawl away—and crashing down atop him.
By then, Taeauna had fenced for a moment with the third knight before driving the point of her blade through his throat. Larkhelm was backing away, calling one of the knights—Torth—to fall back with him.
Rod trotted after Taeauna, slicing his sword through the throat of the first knight, who was struggling to get out from under the weight of his dying fellow. Three down, one retreating, two knights left—who ducked to either side and hacked at Taeauna fiercely.
She cried out in pain as a sword bit into her side, slicing through her leathers, and staggered sideways—but the knights were too eager to follow her and strike her down to really notice Rod, and he flung himself atop the nearest one, bringing him crashing to the floor. Which left the other one turning, startled—so Taeauna could hack at his neck, and send him reeling away, choking on blood and dropping his sword.
Viciously Rod swarmed up the struggling knight, knowing the man was stronger and heavier than he was, and if he got Rod off him and turned over, Falconfar's newest Lord Archwizard would be doomed. He chopped awkwardly at the man's face with his sword, again and again, as if he was dicing onions, and was still at it when Taeauna's sword slid in past his, right into the man's snarling mouth.
An instant later she was gone, swept away by the charging Torth, whose vicious swing took her under her breasts and sliced upwards, flinging her back and away amid a great spray of blood.
Rod heard her sword clatter across the floor as he struggled to his feet, slipping and sliding on blood-drenched armor underfoot, and flung himself on Torth, hard.
He came down on the knight's legs and drove him headlong to the floor, down atop the first two men he and Taeauna had felled. Torth stopped struggling, very suddenly, and collapsed.
Rod clawed his way up, bloody sword in hand and breathing hard, and whirled around.
Arduke Mordrimmar Larkhelm, who'd been creeping up on him with a sword raised to strike, halted warily.
"Taeauna?" Rod called, waving his sword to keep the noble at bay. "Tay?"
There came no reply. Larkhelm sneered.
"Calling for your Aumrarr nursemaid, not-wizard? What a pitiful little figurehead you are! Plaything of the wingbitches, strutting simpleton..."
He feinted with his sword, and Rod desperately sought to parry; the arduke's sword slid past his clumsy blade and almost kissed his throat. Rod frantically leaned away.
"You are no man of Galath," the noble purred, advancing a menacing step and forcing Rod to retreat. "In fact, you are no man.''''
"Ah," Rod replied, rage rising in him, "but at least I'm human. Unlike most of the nobles of Galath."
Larkhelm laughed, feinting again. This time Rod sidestepped and tried a cut of his own. It was turned aside with casual ease. "Ooooh," the arduke grinned at him, "you taunt like my sisters used to—before I ruined and then killed them. Which I believe I'll do to you, not-wizarrr—"
Rod lost his temper and smashed at Larkhelm's blade as if he was wielding an axe. The startled arduke fell back hastily, clawing at his sword with his other hand to keep from dropping it—and Rod tried what he'd seen Taeauna do. He ran past the noble, lashing out backhand from behind.
Larkhelm parried, turning to do so. Rod kept running, circling. The noble was defending now, taunts gone, face tight with determination... and fear. Rod smashed at him again, then danced away before the arduke's counter-thrust could reach him. And in again.
This time, Larkhelm's retreat took him back into Torth's feet, and he stumbled.
Rod rushed in, raining clumsy blows on the noble's swords and arms and face, rage mastering him at last.
"I did not create you for this!" he spat. "You're a Falcon-spitting evil bastard, harming Galath with every swindle and sneer! Die! Die, you—you creep!"
Larkhelm gurgled through the blood streaming down his face, pleading.
Rod swung his sword two-handed, biting through Larkhelm's throat.
The noble toppled over backwards, staring disbelievingly at the ceiling.
Leaving Rod panting for a moment, the last one standing in the gloomy chaos of blood and bodies.
He didn't feel like a hero. He didn't even feel like the victor. Not when his Tay had fallen...
Rod spun and raced to her.
She was sprawled on her back, her chest a lacerated ruin—but rising and falling. Feebly.
Her eyes were closed, her mouth slack, more blood everywhere. Rod crashed down on his knees beside her and sliced open his palm, wincing at the pain. His hand filled with wet stickiness, eerie sky blue glow coming off it like smoke, and he tipped it into her mouth.
She coughed, shuddered, mewled with pain, and coughed again.
Rod looked down at his palm. It was almost whole again already. Impatiently he cut himself again, deeper this time, the pain sickening... and gave her more.
Taeauna's eyes opened.
"Tay?" he cried, bending close to her. "Tay?"
She seemed to be staring at him from a distance, her eyes dull as if a mist hung between the two of them.
"M-more, if you please, Lord," she whispered.
Rod cut his arm this time, carving deeply, gritting his teeth to keep from retching. Blue fire streamed down him and into her greedy mouth, and she seemed to be raising herself by pulling on him, gaining strength as she sucked and swallowed.
"Lord Rod, you have saved me," she told him, sighing with relief. "Again."
Rod nodded at her, managing a smile through a sudden, pounding headache. He felt weak and empty—and when he turned, almost toppled over.
Strong hands caught and held him. Taeauna rose and hauled him to his feet, as strong and supple as ever.
Rod smiled at her again, took a step toward his fallen sword— and stumbled, almost falling.
A hand like iron held him and dragged him upright again.
"Come, my Lord Arch wizard. We must find another way than this."
"Way to where?"
"We need to find a good place to watch from."
"Watch what?"
"You'll see!"
Rod had to be content with that; she'd turned away, kicking Larkhelm's sprawled body as she passed it.
Shaking his head ruefully, he puffed
along in Taeauna's wake, admiring—and not for the first time—her shapely behind as she raced away from him.
"BY THE FALCON!" Garfist Gulkoun growled. "What d'ye think we've missed?"
As they came out onto the balcony, bodies were spattering and thudding into the rafters—knights and armsmen and nobles, flung high into the air by spells.
Dozens of lorn were flapping and cartwheeling among them, wings smashed by the collisions, and here and there among the hurtling bodies were Dark Helms. The floor of the hall, below, was an almost continuous maelstrom of explosions and the flashes of spells going off.
Gar, Isk, Dauntra, and Juskra exchanged looks. From the sounds coming from the balconies below theirs and the passages behind them, it seemed that all Galathgard had become a battleground.
Several people came out on the balcony right beneath theirs. Juskra flung out an arm to warn her companions back, and they sank down and fell silent to listen.
"But—but why me? I'm only a klarl, hardly someone of wealth and power enough to—"
"Dunshar, we know that," someone replied firmly. Male, like the klarl; the next speaker was female, her voice melodious and cool.
"Annusk, I value your candor. Your judgment is every bit as sound. If we had the leisure, we would indeed try for a higher- ranking and better-known lord of Galath. I thank you for your concern; you do care for your realm above all else."
"Lady Tesmer, I—I always have, I swear..."
"In all this tumult," the other man interrupted, "we dare not reach for anyone higher. Take heart, for you just might turn out to be the best king Galath has ever known."
Juskra tapped the others, pointed back the way they'd come, and started crawling, holding her sword with great care to prevent the slightest sound.
Not that she need have worried much. A miscast magic roared up to the rafters in a tower of glowing smoke, and burst half the hall away, sending splinters and shards and roiling dust crashing past the balconies in ear-splitting cacophony.
When they could hear again, several rooms away, Juskra murmured into the ringing heads bent close to hers, "I know those voices. Belard and Talyss Tesmer are here, and coaching their own puppet noble—Klarl Annusk Dunshar—as to how to behave, as they try to put him on the throne."
"Tesmers? From Ironthorn?" Gar rumbled. "Falcon, all the troublemakers are gathering!"
"Which is why," Dauntra told him sweetly, "you’re here."
STRIDING INTO HER chambers in Ironthorn, Maera Tesmer stopped suddenly as something dark and cold uncoiled in her mind. She stiffened, drawing in her breath with a gasp. Lorontar.
It's time.
Trembling, she hastened back to bar her door, then put her back to it, faced the silent rooms, and cast a shielding to end all scrying on her.
It took effect, rolling silently out from her like a wave. Nigh the door to her bedchamber, there came the sudden flare of a spell collapsing, and a faint, momentary whisper, just a snatch of a heartfelt curse.
Smiling, she turned to a lectern and threw back its cloth cover, revealing an old, heavy tome. It held a spell that would enable her to trace her parents' hedge-wizard, if she moved very quickly, and—
No. Gather your magics faster than that. You are now going to disappear from Ironthorn. Swiftly.
Maera stiffened again. "To where?" she whispered.
You'll see.
Maera waited, but the cold voice in her mind said no more.
The silence deepened, and she crossed her chambers and started snatching grimoires and wands and bulging pouches out of hiding places.
Warmth was rising in her, spreading through her limbs. Power. Dark power.
The true Lord Archwizard of Falconfar was awakening.
THEY WERE BOTH panting by the time they reached the top of the stairs. Taeauna reached out, clasped Rod's hand in hers, and towed him to the left, into some ruined rooms Dunshar's workers had not yet touched. Mildew, old animal dung, and a litter of small bones and torn birdnests lay strewn everywhere.
"Good," the wingless Aumrarr said, surveying the wreckage. "Unfinished. We should be able to move swiftly, then."
"Where are we going?" Rod gasped.
"Onward," she snapped back, then added a grin. "As always."
IT WAS A small army, and on foot, but it was moving fast. Warriors in motley armor, with only a handful of knights. Some of those who wore leather war-harness and bore swords were hedge- wizards who had spells ready, but were determined not to look like wizards—or as the king had dryly termed mages, "targets."
Marquel Gordraun Windstrike led the dozen-strong bodyguard of old loyal knights who strode in a ring around two men. One was the King of Galath, and the other was a man in long dark robes, with a face like a hatchet and eyes like angry fires. Half Falconfar could have identified him by the claw badge on the breast of his robes: Orothor Taervellar of the Talons, wizard for hire.
They slew all who defied them, as they advanced through Galathgard, but there were few enough; skirmishes were raging through various far-flung wings of the castle, but the great rooms at its heart were now heaped fields of the dead.
"This next one," King Brorsavar announced calmly, "is what we're looking for. The throne room."
The doors stood open, and a haze of smoke hung heavy in the air. Armor-clad bodies lay everywhere, with here and there a pain- wracked armsman or knight moving feebly amid the gore.
Briskly the king's warriors spread out, ranging through the room. No one still alive looked to be a wizard or a noble of consequence, so they lit torches and set them in wall-brackets, heaved the press of bodies in and around the throne aside—lordrakes, ardukes, and veldukes all lay thickly there—and lifted one man off the throne itself whose backside, by the looks of things, had triggered one last trap, and driven four swordblades right up through him. He—if it had been a he—came away in slabs of meat that trailed bones and intestines, and Marquel Windstrike was nearly sick several times.
Some of the knights set about hammering at the upthrust swords, but Taervellar of the Talons shook his head, waved them away, and cast a spell that turned the metal to a mist that drifted slowly away.
'"Tis safe now of all metal," he announced, cast another spell, and after a moment nodded and added, "And lurking magic, too."
Windstrike looked to the king, received a nod, and turned to point at certain armsmen, who lifted war horns from their belts and blew a long, roaring succession of blasts.
Then they stood waiting.
It did not take long. Running boots could be heard approaching, and occasional clangs of swords glancing off stone, to the accompaniment of curses.
Then noble after noble, wild-eyed and blood-spattered, came panting into the great chamber, bloody swords in hand.
Windstrike waited a little longer, glanced at the king and received another nod, and signaled to the hornsmen again.
The fanfare, this time, was loud and splendid. Amid its rolling echoes, more men came crowding into the room.
The marquel stepped forward. "King Melander Brorsavar hath arrived!" he announced grandly.
Behind him, the smiling man sat down on the blackened, bloodstained throne of Galath and said in a voice both gentle and—thanks to his hired wizard's magic—heard from end to end of the hall, "This, my Great Court, has now begun."
The blood-spattered nobles stared at him open-mouthed for a long and wavering moment.
Then bellowed as one man and charged to the attack.
TAERVELLAR OF THE of the Talons stood under an unlit torch, his back to the wall, wearing an unlovely smile. Magical flames had sprung into being out of nowhere into his hands, and he was almost casual in blasting down every noble or knight, or armsman who got too close to the throne.
Pillars of fire sprouted from the stones, men shrieking as they died, until there were no more.
"We will have order," King Brorsavar said calmly. Those who shouted defiance of those words were Taervellar's next targets.
Greasy
smoke drifted away down the throne room in the uneasy silence.
For now, at least, order had been achieved.
"The rightful King of Galath welcomes his loyal nobles to this, his first Great Court," Marquel Windstrike announced.
King Brorsavar stood up, smiled down at the crowd in the room— which was growing again, as late arrivals came hesitantly in—and told them, "I don't expect to survive this gathering, my lords of Galath. Yet we have much to celebrate, whatever befalls. Our realm has been cleansed of many lorn and Dark Helms, and—"
"Now!" a noble shouted, and magics were unleashed from all over the chamber. Not spells, but the stored powers of ring, wand and helm.
The magics were sent not at the king, but at Taervellar, who struggled to keep his feet in the jaws of a growing conflagration that raged savagely around him, howling and tightening.
Suddenly, in the roaring heart of the rending magic, he fell. With nothing to strike at, the magics that had killed him whirled outwards, lashing the knights and armsmen guarding the throne.
A door beside the throne opened, stone grating loudly, and an unwilling servant was thrust out. Marquel Windstrike's sword was in the man's heart in an instant—leaving him defenseless against Belard Tesmer, who thrust his blade over the dying servant's shoulder and into Windstrike's mouth before he could even shout a warning.
"Now," Talyss Tesmer said, voice triumphant—and Belard hurled both dying servant and marquel aside, to race past the throne and hack at the nearest knights.
In his wake came Klarl Annusk Dunshar, charging the throne with daggers ready in both hands. King Brorsavar had just time to draw his own knife before Dunshar's blades sank deep into him.
Brorsavar reeled, and Belard Tesmer took time from slaughtering knights to lash out backhanded at the king, breaking the royal neck and driving the dying man forward into Dunshar's unwilling embrace.
"For... for Galath," the old king struggled to say, through welling blood. And died.
Nobles all over the room were sprinting for the throne, hacking at everyone in their way.
Brorsavar's guards went down quickly, and wild slaughter raged across the throne room once more, the nobles protecting themselves and settling grudges in the melee.