Falconfar 03-Falconfar (31 page)

"The cops searched your house," Max told him excitedly, almost as if he could read Rod's mind, "and it's all locked up—I guess you found that out, huh?—because the lawyers for your creditors and relatives are all fighting about it. They said you couldn't be declared dead yet. And they were right, because here you are— and aren't! Dead, I mean, that is!" "And here I aren't," Rod agreed. "So far, at least." Taeauna reached back through the open gate, took firm hold of Rod's arm, and started towing him through it.

"I—uh—I hope you don't mind," Max said hastily, holding up the empty plastic bag. "I've—uh—I've been coming over and, uh, harvesting your vegetables sometimes. I mean, it seemed a shame to let them go to waste, and—"

"Max," Rod told him, "that's great. I'm glad you did that. I've been very busy, very far away, and it's good to hear that they ended up on your plate. You just go right on doing that, because I may not be back again for a while, maybe a long while, and—" "Oh," Max said, and looked back at Taeauna. "'Cause of her, huh?" "Well, yes and no," Rod replied, as the Aumrarr drew him to her side and started across the path, into the trees. "We've still got a lot to do together, you see, and—and—"

The jet of flame that roared down the garden then crisped two trees and a bush, set the old, wet posts and scaling-paint boards of the back fence aflame, and missed Rod himself only because the fire had also flared up in his mind—driving him to fall to his knees, to clutch at his head.

Narmarkoun was standing on the back deck, tall and terrible, his eyes blazing with anger. Letting fall an unfolded, yellowing piece of paper that looked like one of Rod's phone bills, and thrusting his dagger back into his belt-sheath, he raised his hands into the air, and started to spit out a long and ugly sounding incantation.

During which Taeauna plucked Rod bodily to his feet and raced into the trees with him, holding him up by main strength.

Max Sutherland stared not at her or his departing neighbor, but at the blue wizard. He listened to the incantation for just long enough to let his mouth drop open and his eyes follow the path of the now-vanished flame—a line of blackened tree trunks topped with ash, where all their upper branches were now simply gone— right down the garden, and started to shake.

A moment later, he wet himself, started gobbling like a turkey, turned, and fled wildly.

Right into a tree, slamming into it face first, hard.

He ended up on the ground, nose streaming blood, but picked himself up with remarkable speed, managed to catch—out of sheer habit, without really looking—both halves of his broken glasses as they fell from his nose, and ran blindly on, pounding past his own backyard and the Jenkins' and the Smiths' and the old Miller place that no one lived in now, dwindling into the distance.

GARFIST SHIFTED HIS behind to get clear of a particularly uncomfortable knob of rough wood—and almost lost his grip on the tree for the third time.

"Sit still, and you won't be in quite so much danger of falling," Juskra's voice came down to him, from the branch above. It did not sound all that sympathetic. "Tell me, when you were so enthusiastically killing patrons back in yon tavern, Gulkoun, did you happen to notice any badges or blazons, or hear any names? Sir this or Lord that?"

"Why?" the fat man growled, trying to find a more comfortable stretch of bough to sit on. "Are ye keeping score in some game of count-the-surviving nobles?"

"Yes, as it happens," she replied crisply. "And before you ask why, know this: it's just one more of those crazy, mysterious things Aumrarr do. That'd be those same Aumrarr who flew you to safety."

"Call this safety?" Garfist asked gloomily, looking down. It looked to be a long, long way to the ground.

"And the same Aumrarr you'll need to depart your current perch—er, refuge—safely," she added.

Garfist peered up at her. "No," he said sharply. "No, I did not. My killing enthusiasm must have gotten the better of me. Being a mere flawed human, an' all that. Does it matter?"

"Eventually. If they all go on behaving like arrogant idiots. Galath will run out of knights and nobles some day."

"Ye think so? Myself, I'm not thinking any realm'll ever run out of such pests unless they're all rounded up and put to the sword at once, every last one of them. They breed, y'see. All of them, hey? D'ye by chance wager on this, ye wingbitches?"

Dauntra laughed merrily, from the lower branch she was sharing with Iskarra. "Don't tempt us, Gar. Don't tempt us."

"Well, Wouldn't be fair," Garfist growled. "Ye Aumrarr kill folk and suchlike, too. Ye can make a wager and then go out an' bring something about that ye've just bet on happening. That's hardly fair.'"

Juskra snorted. "You're how old, fat man? And you think life is fair? Well, you are an idiot."

STRIDING DOWN THE garden, Narmarkoun ignored the fleeing human utterly. What cared he for any hue and cry raised in this otherwhere?

His attention was bent, with the piercing stare of the hunting eagle, on a storm of hissing murmurs and crashing noises in the trees. They were thicker than he'd thought, almost a swamp thicket of bushes and dead saplings, and his storm of force-arrows might well do little harm to anyone who got down low, quickly enough.

The spell was fierce but brief, and he stood at the very edge of the trees and listened hard, hearing its brief echoes die away but trying to hear something else. Everlar's mind was still alive, but the fool was holding his hands over his eyes, or the Aumrarr was holding her hands over them, so he could learn nothing beyond the mere survival of the so-called Lord Archwizard.

Then he heard what he'd been expecting: faint but repeated crackling sounds as two bodies rose cautiously and started moving through dead leaves and fallen branches. Moving away from him, of course.

He took a step back, not even bothering to curse, and with unhurried care cast another, longer spell.

This time, the faint forest sounds coming back to him included a chorus of ringing clangs. Narmarkoun smiled faintly, picturing what he got to see moments later, albeit blurred and confusedly, through borrowed eyes: his magic was working, snatching at every last piece of metal they wore or carried, pulling it irresistibly back toward him. Small or loose metal things—daggers riding in unstrapped sheaths, keys and coins in unfastened pouches— would be torn away and whirled off into the forest, flying or bouncing or rolling toward him. To stop right about there, where the reach of the magic ended. If either of them wore armor under their clothing, or didn't get rid of all their daggers in time, they'd be hauled back to him as surely as fish caught in a net.

Probably about as naked, too; this magic often ripped buckles and pins right out of the target's clothes.

He retreated a few steps, to give himself time to cast whatever spell might be best, and waited, smiling coldly. Did these idiots know nothing about magic? Did they honestly believe they could hide from a wizard—much less a Doom of Falconfar—who was linked to the mind of one of them? They'd have done better to have split up, to have the Aumrarr lurk and slink and try to slay him with a lucky dagger-thrust, while Rod the Shaper played unwitting lure.

Not a challenging role, after all.

Everlar, so far as he could tell, hadn't moved since throwing himself to the ground when the spell erupted. The Shaper was still cowering back there in the trees, wondering how to hold his pants up now that his belt was gone. He was whimpering in fear, a singing dread that left him trembling.

Narmarkoun's lip curled. Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, indeed. A child could be more capable. Shriek and quake in terror, little mindless thing, as Narmarkoun comes for you...

A branch danced, right in front of his nose, and the Aumrarr burst out from behind it, leaping right at him. She was half-naked, and was whirling the torn remnants of her jerkin with both hands like a cloak as she screamed, "Rod! Now!"

In the wake of that shriek, she fell on Narmarkoun like a whirlwind, clawing and kicking and—and biting, damn her!

Narmarkoun tried to snap out a spell that would hurl her away, but her flailing jerkin caught him in the teeth. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, everything was a confused roaring. Punches rained bruisingly on him, and he was choking, his mouth full of wadded cloth and what felt like her fingers thrusting more in deeper.

He bit down hard, snarling in satisfaction—only to choke in sudden agony as she slammed the edge of her hand down on his throat. He tried to scream, then tried to sob, but couldn't find breath for either...

"B-B-BUT THE LADY Talyss—"

Klarl Annusk Dunshar's protest was as frantic as it was feeble.

Belard gave him a tight, steely smile and murmured into Dunshar's sweating, quivering face, "—has changed her mind. Is there something wrong with your hearing, Dunshar? Must I find a slightly less deaf noble of the realm to take over rebuilding fair Galathgard? For if I must, that would seem to make you... expendable."

"Nononono! Wah-huh-who would—would—"

"Lick her toes clean? I'm sure a kingdom this large must hold someone else with a tongue, and knees to crawl on, hmm?"

He tightened his grip on the lace that covered Dunshar's gorget, gave the dolt a good shake—and then let go disgustedly, allowing the klarl's limp body to crash heavily to the floor. The fair flower of House Dunshar was out cold, and had wet himself, to boot.

"This is all becoming steadily more tiresome," a familiar voice murmured, from behind him.

"Sister, this was your plan, remember?" he replied, turning with a smile. "Blame none of its more tiresome moments on me."

IN A SNARLING, seething frenzy Narmarkoun kicked out and rolled over, getting momentarily free of the Aumrarr. Clawing his way to his feet, he sprinted blindly away, treading on the cloth hampering him with his first stride, wrenching his head around over his shoulder, eyes watering too hard to see much more than a blur.

The closest shape was the Aumrarr, he knew, and she was right behind him. Narmarkoun kept right on running, glancing bruisingly off a fencepost and thankfully on through the open gate, back toward the house.

The house! In there, she could only come at him through the doorway, where he could turn and hurl quick spells through, to thrust her back. It would be his fortress while he prepared the right magics to deal with her permanently. Then it would become his shelter and Everlar's prison, while he leisurely searched it for its hidden magics and decided how best to leash this otherwhere and make it do his bidding, as he set about conquering Falconfar at last.

Lorontar was the only impediment left to overcome, the only—

Something fell hard on his legs, toppling him helplessly into a face-first skid in wet grass.

Falcon take this Aumrarr! She'd done it again! Even as Narmarkoun fought to get onto his knees so he could be back up and running, she was clawing and clutching at him like a hawk, fresh pain flooding him at her every blow.

"Taeauna!" Everlar was shouting, from not far behind. "Taeauna! I'm here! I'm—urkkh!"

Narmarkoun kicked out behind him viciously, struck something solid and heard the Aumrarr groan—and was free.

And up, sprinting toward the deck and the open back door. The idiot Shaper had obviously fallen on his face in his own garden, the Aumrarr was down and couldn't catch him now, and—

Something fast and heavy struck him between the shoulder blades as he rushed through the door, smashing him to the floor.

The Aumrarr, of course.

Enough! She was going to die, and she was going to die now! Not slowly and painfully, not pleading for her life or for a merciful death. No, she was just going to—

The spell that roared out of him was a simple thing from his youth, the only thing he remembered just now that was fast enough and free of any need for gestures or focal items. Feeble, but it did what he needed it to do. The Aumrarr's head and shoulders bounced off the wall with ugly sounding thuds, she gasped, and Narmarkoun was free!

He pushed her off, scrambled around the corner into a room that was crowded with discarded old furniture, stacked boxes of things, and of course books, and turned to rend her with a good sword-storm spell, like—

The kick swept Narmarkoun's feet out from under him and toppled him helplessly into one of the stacks of boxes. One by one, hard and heavy, they came down on him.

He couldn't even draw breath under all the bruising blows to curse. He fought to turn himself over and drag himself out from under them—as they started to spill all their contents all over him in a noisy flood of things that clanged or thumped or shattered like glass.

He managed it somehow, though, snarling out his rage and rising up to—

Be struck in the face by with a chair, breaking his jaw, sending teeth flying and slamming him back into another stack of boxes.

This one didn't collapse, but Narmarkoun couldn't even find his balance, let alone avoid the next swing, which hit him across his nose and forehead hard enough to make everything go momentarily dark.

He felt himself falling.

Then he felt nothing much at all.