Falconfar 01-Dark Lord (31 page)

She gasped and shuddered, half-closing her eyes and moving under his hand with her lips caught in her teeth, moaning as if in need, and then stuck out her tongue at him, made a rude sound, and snapped, "Where's that ale? Are they all out back pissing into a keg to fill it for us, then?"

"D'wanna stay here for the night? I think they rent rooms, Isk."

"Not if you're going to try to crawl on top of me. My love for being crushed is fading." Iskarra belched loudly, and then winced. "Gorge rising, throat afire," she croaked. "Get them to bring that glorking ale!"

Garfist growled in agreement, swung himself around, and heaved himself upright. The movement was heralded by great creakings from the stout chair beneath him.

The deserted taproom of the Gauntlet and Feather heaved and rolled for a moment under his boots, like the deck of a ship in heavy seas, but he was used to that, and just kept striding, reaching the door beside the bar at about the same time as the master of the house and a sweating Narjak started through it with a full keg between them.

Garfist scooped it out of their shared grasp with one hand, and bore it away back to his table with a satisfied purring sound, leaving Narjack open-mouthed in awe, and gaping, a moment later, when the decaying woman at the table stood up eagerly and held out an empty tankard, her bodice fell open, and he could
swear
he saw the nipple of one bared breast grow a tiny hand and tug the bodice back up. The tavern master hastened along in the keg's wake, anxious to prevent spillage when it was tapped, or utter disaster if it got dropped.

Garfist sat down with the keg in his lap, as if it was a giggling tavern maid, and roared, "Where're all yer other patrons, friend? All upstairs bouncing the beds? Or are they out there running around in the streets like all the rest? Ye'd think there was a siege coming, the way they're preparing!"

The tavern master managed a weak smile.

"W-well, as a matter of... aha... fact, there, ah, is."

Garfist looked up and dropped his own jaw onto the keg beneath it. "Well, shit me! Who're the belligerent would-be conquerors?"

"Ah, well... almost all of the Lords of Galath, they say. They're not here yet, mind."

The tavern master half expected the two drunkards to explode into profanity and swaying, doomed attempts to hasten out of his establishment and flee the city.

He did not at all expect Garfist to slap the table, grin broadly, and growl, "Well, that's grand! Always wanted to be lord of somewhere, and sounds like some vacancies're going to open up soon. Lord Garfield Gulkoon of Galath; has a ring to it, don't ye think?"

The tavern master of the Gauntlet and Feather prided himself on being a seasoned, unflappable professional, and proved it to himself then and there. He managed to entirely quell his strong and instant impulse to shudder.

THe soup was
wonderful, a rich broth thick with onions and the leavings of many spit-roasted fowl. Taeauna and Rod both ate heartily until they were more than full; Rod was amused to find that Aumrarr belched and groaned and sat back in chairs holding their bellies just like everyone else did.

They'd expected their summons to the velduke's table would mean sitting at a long table in a lofty and echoing hall feasting with a lot of haughty people, but instead they'd been shown into a cozy, book-lined study with a magnificent map of Falconfar on the wall that Rod spent a long time studying.

The room had no guards or servants or anyone but the two of them in it, and held books on shelves all around the walls, and a littered desk that had a lone dagger floating point-down in the air over it. ("Guard-blade," Taeauna had murmured. "Don't go anywhere near yon desk, even if papers blow off it by themselves.") It also held a table with four stout chairs drawn up around it. The soup had been served to them at the table, along with lemon-scented drinking water, a fragrant-smelling fresh loaf of bread, a sharp saw-knife to cut it with, and a bowl of garlic butter to spread on it. Rod could remember few meals as good, in all his life.

They'd sat over the remains of the repast until the last heel of the bread was quite cold, and Rod was fighting back yawns and wondering when a servant would appear to guide them back to their bed in those distant guest chambers.

"Shouldn't we...?" he got as far as asking Taeauna.

Her response was a sharp look and a firm, "Patience."

As if that had been a cue, a bookshelf swung open and Velduke Deldragon strode in, stroking his flaxen mustache. He nodded a silent greeting to them, his ice-blue eyes seeming somehow dull and washed out, and scaled the helm under his arm into a corner where it thudded down on a cushion Rod hadn't noticed before.

Suddenly the room was full of silent, deftly hastening servants, bringing a housecloak, wine and a platter of goblets and sugared nuts, and steaming platters of roasted meat. Just as suddenly, they were all gone again, and Velduke Deldragon was wearily forking meat running with red juices onto his plate and saying, "Lady of the Aumrarr? This is choice young stag; I smoke and hang my own."

"I'd love some, Darendarr," Taeauna said gently, "but let me carve and serve. You look tired."

"I am tired. I've been rushing around all day talking. I'd prefer to swing a sword daylong, any day. By the Falcon, it's tiring giving orders and explaining, explaining, explaining! You'd think my people of Bowrock would know about catching rainwater and bringing in hay for the beasts and all of that by now, but every time—"

"I know," Taeauna said sympathetically, and it sounded to Rod as if she really did.

Deldragon ran a hand through his flowing hair, and then gave Rod an apologetic grin. "It's a lot of work, preparing for a siege," he said, "but you don't want to hear all about that. Nor do I find I want to talk all about that, one more thuttering time."

He attacked his stag like a starving man, and then looked straight at Rod and asked, "What do you know about the Dooms?"

Rod was aware of Taeauna's sudden glare at the velduke—she was bristling as if she wanted to draw sword on him—but kept his eyes steady on Deldragon's before replying. "Not much," he said. "That there are three of them, maybe four someday, and that they're powerful wizards, really powerful wizards, who want to rule all Falconfar. Each of them, so they fight each other. And I believe I heard in Arvale that one of them is trying to rule Galath. The Dark Helms serve them, and maybe the lorn."

Deldragon nodded. "Three evil wizards at war with each other. Each of them seeks the magic of the past, for sorcery has fallen far in reach and mastery since the days when Lorontar butchered every wizard who wouldn't bow to him. So today the Dooms scramble to gather the most powerful spells and enchanted items from tombs, and the ruined castles of long-fallen kings, and the vaults of Galathan nobles. One of them does rule our king, and through him orders nobles slaughtered or banished, so their magic can be seized. Hence this siege; it comes now because I dared to aid Tindror, but it was coming anyway. Bowrock is awash in magics."

At that moment, a glow kindled in the air above the table, air that started to sing, high and faint. It grew very quiet around the table as the glow grew, and something small and wraithlike materialized into view on the polished table, right in front of Rod.

Something that became more solid, until all hints of wraith-smoke were gone, and they were all staring at something that looked like a little jewel box, that might comfortably fit in a lady's palm. It had a tail of fine chain, that ended in a finger-ring. The glow and singing sound faded, leaving it gleaming brightly against the dark, smooth wood.

"Don't touch it," Taeauna snapped at Rod. "Please."

She shot a glance at Deldragon, who was staring at the box in mute astonishment. "I was going to accuse you of producing these enchanted trinkets, as a test to see if my companion here is a wizard."

He tore his gaze from the jewel box at the word "accuse" and looked up at her.

The Aumrarr's gaze, on his, was both hard and cool. "Those curios on the table in our guest chambers were just that, weren't they?"

The velduke blinked, sighed, and nodded. "Yes. They were put there at my command by hired Stormar wizards; magelings of no great accomplishment, which is the only sort of wizard I can afford. Yet you just said you were going to accuse me this time...but?"

The Aumrarr's gaze softened. "But 'tis clear you're as surprised as we are. Wherefore this isn't your doing. Someone else has reached into Bowrock with their spells. Someone who knows this man is here."

"Someone who can reach freely into Bowrock, past the wardings cast by my hired mages," Deldragon added grimly.

"Or someone who is inside Bowrock, already here in this keep, hidden among your folk," Taeauna said quietly.

They watched the velduke slowly go white.

"Blow me hard
, Isk, if
I
can think of a good reason for us being allowed inside yon keep," Garfist growled. "They're preparing for a glorking siege, aren't they now? What idiocy could induce them to let two outlanders who look like us anywhere near their precious velduke?"

Iskarra pointed one long and bony finger at two wagons being drawn slowly up a distant cobbled slope that led to a gate somewhere on the far side of the keep. "Food. They'll want wagonloads of food in there. Turnips. Lar-fruit. Bloodbuds. Wheels of cheese from far Zharlay."

Garfist's gut rumbled like storm-thunder. "Huh. I wouldn't mind a wagon of cheese from far Zharlay."

He waved one shovel-sized hand in an expressive gesture of futility, keeping the other wrapped tightly around what was left of the keg of ale. He'd brought it with him out of the tavern despite its sour taste, because, well, it was beer. "And just where are ye going to get a loaded wagon of plenty from, hmm?"

"Behind the market, of course. They're still arriving now."

"And the drovers as owns it? They're just going to hand it over to ye, I suppose?"

Iskarra triumphantly bared her breasts and belly, plunged a hand into her navel which split apart vertically, into a wide, bloodless opening, reached up inside herself, behind her bulging breasts, fumbled with something there, and triumphantly drew forth two tankards. Theirs, from the tavern.

Garfist looked incredulous. "Ye're going to seek someone stupid enough to trade us a loaded wagon—and dray-beasts, mind—for two empty tankards?"

Iskarra rolled her eyes. "Stick to brawling and spewing and rutting, old Gulkoon, and leave the thinking to me, hmm?"

She nudged one of her breasts with a tankard. "With these, we distract the men we choose. You smite them to sleep, we leave the tankards in their hands and them propped sitting against a wall, and you half-fill the tankards and drench the rest of them with yon ale, and off we go. Everyone who sees them will think them drunkards. That much is so easy it's barely worth saying aloud. What's got me foxed and witless is what happens after we're inside the gates; what then?"

"Then we help unload, discover our beast-harness is broke, and say we're too tired to deal with it now, we've come all this way, it can wait until morning. Should we sleep in our wagons, is there anywhere around here to shit, and by Galath we're hungry; are there kitchens still open?"

Iskarra smiled crookedly. "You can still think!"

"O'course, lass! That's how I get all the gels, and their coins, and then peels the one away from the other, remember?"

Iskarra rolled her eyes. "Peeling gels," she murmured. "All you ever think about..." She stowed the tankards away where she'd produced them from, and did up her clothing again, peering pointedly all around. She even looked under her own feet and around behind Garfist.

"What're ye playing at this time?" he growled. "Ye're being clever again, I know ye are! When ye get that look on yer face..."

"I'm looking for the gels," she snapped. "And the coins, too."

Garfist made a very rude gesture that ended with him noisily licking three adjacent hooked fingers clean.

Iskarra struck a pose, and made her crawlskin fashion lush curves with naughty areas of spectacular size. "You can do that if you can catch me," she said, sticking out her tongue at him, "but it's been years since you've been able to do that."

"If I was a rutting Doom of Galath," Garfist said heavily, "yer ass'd not be laughing so loudly!"