Falconfar 03-Falconfar (21 page)

"Aye," the master-of-scouts put in sourly, chewing on a water-reed. "All of us, turned to pop-belch frogs. Spoils indeed. We'll go good in the stewpots of whichever's wizard's left."

Zorzaerel shook his head. "No, not blundering out into the heart of their quarrel, yelling and waving our swords, ripe to be turned into anything. Keeping quiet and hidden, rather, to see what happens. We must see what happens!"

"Oh?" Olondyn asked incredulously, reaching his own helm down into the creek. "Must? Life gone too quiet for you, Zorz?"

The youngest warcaptain lifted his head to glower, and waved one finger at the archer. "If Malraun had caged monsters and someone's going to let them out to prowl and breed and eventually show up hungry at my back door, I want to know about it!"

"You're sure we can't learn all that from a good safe distance away?" someone else asked. "Right here, for instance?"

"No," Olondyn snapped, not bothering to look up. "We must see what happens at Malraun's tower for ourselves. Would you trust someone else to tell you, true and full? Wizards have more ways than we can count to fool our minds, or take beast-shape, or show us something that's not there. I'm with Zorz; I want to be there, and know."

"Know that trees and castle stones and little pieces of wizards are raining down on our heads?" Sortrel of Taneth snorted. "What's to know? You been hit so often above yer ears that you can't feel it now?"

"You're thinking the wizards'll blast each other to blood-spew, and fuddle-headed Tay and her warriors," Askurr said slowly, "leave just one of them still standing for us to take down."

"Aye," Zorzaerel growled, "and we will take him down, whoever it be. No more wizards!"

"Aye to that" Sortrel echoed.

"No more wizards!" Askurr agreed loudly.

"See for ourselves," someone else muttered.

"Treasure!" someone else barked, as if in reply.

"No more wizards," Olondyn and Bracebold of Telchassur thundered.

"Aye!" Zorzaerel shouted, standing up and waving his helm excitedly, slopping water all over Askurr. "Whichever mage prevails there, we slay or hunt down. Let's be rid of them all!"

"Now that," the master-of-scouts snapped, "I'll drink to. Pity this is but spring water!"

Suddenly everyone was up and moving; hoisting packs, settling helms back into place, and stowing bulging water flasks.

"We're not turning back to Wytherwyrm, are we?" Olondyn demanded disgustedly, looking hard at Askurr in the heart of all this tumult.

"No, no—we go on. We'll take the Downwagon Trail at Wolfskull Ford, and get to Harlhoh right on Taeauna the Wingbitch's shapely heels!"

Olondyn nodded, waved an arm to his archers, and tramped across the stream.

Ahead of him, Bracebold and his men had already set forth. If they wanted to be make Stag Hill before nightfall, and camp somewhere that wasn't deep in the misty bogs of the wolf-haunted heart of the Raurklor, there was ground to cover. Many strides of it.

THE TOMES HAD been right where their minds had told them to look, the tomb unguarded and overgrown in the deep forest. Seizing what they suddenly hungered for had been swift and easy, no more than a few moments tugging a heavy, grating stone lid aside.

Now, panting hard over metal pages that glowed and tingled under their eager hands, Mori and Tethtyn were back in the trees, much farther out from Indrulspire than the tomb was, sitting on adjacent stumps at one end of a woodcutters' clearing that didn't look to have seen an axe swung all this season. They were a good long ramble along a narrow log-drag trail distant from Indrulspire, which might be a good thing; they had no idea how much noise and disturbance their magics might cause.

Lorontar was there, at the back of their minds. They could both feel him, and dimly sense each other's thoughts, too, through a link that could only be him... but the Lord Archwizard, though awake and watchful, was lurking beneath and behind their thoughts, not riding their minds like the conqueror he'd been back in Kathgallart. For now at least, they were themselves.

Tethtyn supposed they had to be, to truly learn the magic, rather than merely casting it as obedient thralls. He looked up at Mori, and read the same mounting excitement in the Dlarmarran tomekeeper's face as he could feel tingling inside himself, rising insistently, almost chokingly.

"Translocate," he blurted, an instant before Mori could. They were seeking the same magic, Lorontar was making them want it...

Mori's face lit up. "Translocation!" he hissed, stabbing a finger down on the glowing blue metal pages in front of him.

Tethtyn sprang up, turning in the air to face the right way and not miss an instant, as he crouched to look over Mori's shoulder. They peered together at the dark, wandering script; characters that had been stamped—punched, with anvil, hammer, and dies— deep into the glowing, enchanted sheets of metal. The spell was surprisingly simple, just two words to be spoken aloud as the mind pictured two things: the intended destination and a whirling of forces—thus—and brought them together, thus.

Blinking and sweating, his magical tome almost falling from his suddenly numb fingers, Tethtyn abruptly found himself on the other side of the clearing, right beside the untidy pile of brush he'd been staring at as Lorontar made him visualize those whirling forces.

Mori was gaping at him in astonishment—and then was gone, leaving only an empty stump.

An instant later, he was swearing in delighted incredulity right at Tethtyn's elbow. "This is—this is—"

"Yes," Tethtyn agreed enthusiastically, the words almost bubbling out of him with glee. "It is!"

The book quivering in Mori's trembling hands spent two pages exhaustively describing precisely how the forces were supposed to "look" in their minds, and Lorontar was now doggedly marching them through that text, guiding their thoughts from delighted astonishment to ordered thinking, and to visualizing, step by step, moving from an indistinct remembrance of whirling forces to a clear mental image of the whorl of forces he'd put into their thoughts moments ago.

When those whirling energies were vivid and clear in every detail, the lurking Lord Archwizard firmly put images into their minds of where they'd come from: the trodden twigs and dirt right in front of the two stumps.

Abruptly, that's where they were again. Right back across the clearing, without taking a single step.

Translocated, teleported... just like that. They were wizards, or magelings, or whatever one called novices who had already worked magics some hedge-wizards never mastered in long lives full of trying.

"High... thundering... Falcon," Tethtyn swore aloud, slowly and wonderingly. Could it be this easy?

Well, they had Lorontar guiding them, to be sure, making them masters of magic swiftly and surely... Lorontar, who must be preparing them for...

There was a sudden pounding fury behind Tethtyn's eyes, a rising flame and pain that shattered all thought in a flare of unfolding agony and left him staggering, dimly aware of Mori staring at him in concern, and of something else rising out of the pain, something bright and soothing and wonderful, something better than translocation, something he had to have...

He could see it looming, see it but not yet know it for what it was... an idea, a power magic could give him, something a spell could do...

"Bloodsteel," he whispered, as it unfolded in his mind at last. "Armor against any blade..."

Mori was grinning at him, eyes alight, seeing the same thing Tethtyn was seeing.

Swords slashing through their innards, slicing deep into their bellies in ways that should have slain them both, killing wounds that should be making Mori and Tethtyn shriek in utter agony as steel sliced through their guts, spilling everything out into a steaming mess around their legs as they began the descent into oblivion.

Swords that were instead bringing no pain at all, and no spurting blood, but only a thrilling sort of chill... and blue glowing smoke in their wakes rather than gore, the blades slicing through them and on, leaving no trace behind.

They were both unwounded, the swords of their unseen foes cutting right through their midriffs but doing them no harm save sliced clothing. Steel could not shed their blood or cut their innards, so they could stride through any number of blades unscathed, as if those swords and thrusting spears weren't there at all.

"Falcon above!" Tethtyn swore delightedly, as he and Mori grinned at each other in disbelief—and then with one accord peered down at their spellbooks and started turning pages, peering hard and knowing that they'd recognize the bloodsteel spell when their eyes met with it.

It was in Tethtyn's book this time, and Mori leaned on his shoulder as they both murmured the words and lifted their hands to trace in the air with their fingers, leaving two identical glowing blue symbols floating in the air for a long breath before fading away.

It was Tethtyn who got out the little quill-trimming knife from his belt, and Mori who extended his hand. The steel plunged in with such ease that it was hilt-deep against Mori's palm before he could even gasp.

And shiver with the cold as Tethtyn apprehensively snatched the knife back out, and they both bent close to stare at the blue smoke curling up from the glowing, swiftly closing wound.

"Son of a Stormar!" Mori hissed delightedly. "This is... too splendid for words! What will we cast next?"

"Handfire," Tethtyn said firmly, without thinking. The word had just thrust itself into his mind and come out of his mouth, like that.

He smiled wryly. Lorontar, of course.

Mori wasn't asking what "handfire" was. They were both picturing it at the same time: cold flame that burned nothing, but provided light around the caster's hand, some of which could be left behind on anything non-living that was touched—a table, the pull-ring of a door—or hurled through the air, as one throws a fruit, until it struck something it would stick to, or stopping to hover when the caster speaks its word of mastery.

They shared a grin, and started flipping pages again. And there it was, this time in both books, the very same spell. A radiance, nothing more, never strong enough to blind but quite bright enough to read by, or sew or do exacting work with quill or lockpick or—

Mori's hand flared into silent flames, rising soundlessly to nowhere.

Tethtyn smiled, nodded, held up his own hand, and filled it with the handfire from his own spellbook—a steady glow that had no heart nor flame-like raging. They brought them side by side to compare, thrilling at the thought that they could—could—

"Falcon shit! Get them!"

The roar was as loud as it was sudden, a hoarse voice exploding in fury. Tethtyn and Mori barely had time to look up before a wave of strong-smelling attackers was upon them.

They saw swords, and hard-faced men wearing helms and well- worn leather armor, with hairy hands and pounding boots.

Blades plunged into them, leaking cold and blue smoke, then were pulled out to stab and thrust and stab again, the men wielding them snarling in rage and fear.

"Wizards! Falcon-damned wizards skulking to bring doom to the Spire! Die, you lorn-spawned vaugren-rutters!"

Swords met in them with wild clangs, thrust through them wildly and repeatedly enough to stir a breeze, as all-too-solid fists gathered two lots of clothing chokingly under their wearers' chins, and ungentle hands snatched away glowing metal books.

A sword slashed at one tome—and its wielder shrieked out his life and toppled slowly, lightning crawling along his limbs, the unblemished book falling from blackened and smoking fingers.

There were fresh shouts of fear, and swords came ripping up and out through the faces of Mori and Tethtyn, up through their bodies from beneath, to leave them blinking and gasping from the surging, thrilling chill, blue smoke billowing from their mouths.

Then came the fists, swinging hard.

These did hurt, the world rocking and darkening, Mori spitting out blood and teeth as Tethtyn tried to watch him through welling tears, head ringing, fists looming again...

A will that was hard, clear, and swift was suddenly there in Tethtyn's mind. He saw Mori's eyes go dark and glint like drawn steel in the same moment, and knew Lorontar had arisen in the tomekeeper, too.

Then they were both spitting out words they had never heard before, and flinging up their hands to claw the air with spread fingers—and the men with the swords and fists were bursting apart, heads exploding off shoulders in dark red, wet clouds, hands bursting off wrists in spurts of blood that left grotesquely twitching, staggering bodies behind.

They were saying more words, harsh declamations that carried Lorontar's dark smile... and more men died.

Then it was all over, as swiftly as it had begun, and Tethtyn was standing with the fingers of his left hand knuckle-deep in the streaming eyesockets of a whimpering, dying man, searing ruthlessly into the fading welter of terror that had been the forester's mind, seeking... seeking...

They were the Guard of Indrulspire, such as it was, one of two patrols who walked the forest verges of the Spire seeking wolves and thieves and unwanted travelers, men of the Spire who'd fought in wars before and wanted nothing at all to do with wizards or lorn or knights and their war-making lords, and... and...