Falconfar 03-Falconfar (38 page)

"And what man doesn't dream of lying with an Aumrarr, hmm? Well?"

"Dream, yes. Dare to do it? I'm not ready to die just yet," the archer replied. "But aye, of course we all look at her, and wonder." He shook his head. "I wonder what she sees in that gutless idiot of a Lord Archwizard."

"Kindness?" Glorn said quietly. "Someone she doesn't have to constantly battle to get her own way?"

"Phaugh! You sound like a woman!"

"I always do, when I'm talking sense. Now, let's put all this jawing behind us. They're gone, and that's an end to them. Leaving us free to get on with plundering Malragard—remember?"

"WHOSE BLOOD IS it this time?" Talyss contrived to sound amused and bored, but her brother noticed how sharply she'd turned to look, the moment she saw the dark stains.

Good. He hadn't yet been deemed expendable.

Though he might very quickly become so, if his dear sister discovered that he'd been behind the sudden and fatal accidents that had befallen the last two jacks she'd sampled. She didn't like pawns who thought—or worse, acted—for themselves. Even less, those who dared to eliminate other pawns. That was her right, and no one else's. According to the holy Tome of Talyss.

Belard shrugged. "Some careless Galathan. They seem to object to being asked to work hard around here, I've noticed."

"Indeed." His sister's voice turned very dry. "I have in turn noticed how well they can work, when deprived of extraneous nobles swaggering around giving them unhelpful orders, picking fights, and hiring away any worker they see whose work seems competent for their own secret little side projects."

She smiled. "Galathgard is coming along splendidly. We'll make a strong kingdom of Galath yet—if a somewhat more sparsely populated one."

BARON ARUNDUR TATHGALLANT'S saddle creaked under him again, and he gave a loud, heartfelt groan. "My legs! Falcon, I'm sore! What I wouldn't give for a good coach, with decent spells to cut down on all the shaking and pitching and bumping!"

"Longer ride than you're used to, Tathgallant?" Arduke Mordrimmar Larkhelm mocked, from where he sat his tall dappled gray, just ahead. His liveried armsmen were riding before and behind them, bright pennants fluttering the Lion of Larkhelm from their lances. "I suppose you'll be wanting a halt soon, and winsome wenches awaiting us there with wine and dainty morsels and soothing ointments?"

"They have that, on this road?" Tathgallant joked, trying not to sound wistful. "I should get out and about more often."

"You should. Galath is changing around us, my friend, and those who don't see it are going to have a hard time keeping their heads on their necks, I'm thinking."

The baron frowned. "And by that, you mean... ?"

"I mean," Larkhelm replied pleasantly, reclining easily in his saddle, "that I'm heading for Galathgard with a new edge on my favorite sword and my wits honed even sharper, to find the right time for a little regicide. Just a little treason... but successful treason, I'm determined."

The baron felt his mouth fall open and his face grow hot. "Sh- should you be telling me such things, good Larkhelm?"

"Why not? I trust our friendship, and therefore your personal loyalty to me. Nor am I the only one riding these roads with such intent. It's not a matter of which dastardly traitor wants to cut down old Brorsavar, my dear baron, it's who'll get to him first. A lot of us are hungry for change."

Tathgallant looked around uneasily, wondering where the arduke's household wizard was. The mage was riding with them somewhere, he knew; without his conjured ward, they'd be unable to see safely in the dark, or have any protection at all against or arrows out of the night, and would never dare to ride in the moonlight. Not that it was much safer by day, with so many nobles who cordially hated each other on the roads. "Aren't..." He spoke slowly, making sure he chose the right words, "Aren't you worried I'll denounce you?"

"No. I've already prepared a suitable fate for you, if for any suicidal reason you should choose to be so stupid." Larkhelm grinned and rode on.

White-faced, Tathgallant put his spurs gently to his own mount, to keep up to the arduke. Larkhelm's rearguard was riding close behind, and he didn't feel like turning around right now.

He knew he'd see the same ruthless grin on their faces.

THE LEATHERS WERE worn and supple and—damn it, yes—dashing. Rod found himself strutting, despite Taeauna's amused look.

The boots and all the baldrics and scabbards were the crowning touch. The pouch at his belt might be empty, and the daggers at his belt and boots and the sword riding his hip might be far more dangerous to Rod than to anyone else, but he felt ready to take on the world, with a merry jest on his lips and a swash or six to his buckle.

Taeauna's amused regard only made him blush a trifle. "Bring Falconfar on," he told her, grinning back. "At least I'll die pretty."

He now knew why so many bad actors—and good ones, too, for that matter—liked to play pirate so much, no matter how awful the movie. By damn, he cut a fine figure!

"If you polish my breastplate all night, Lord Rodrel, you just might be able to use it as a mirror, come morning," Taeauna said drily.

She plucked down a cloak that was much too large and threw it at him. No sooner had Rod awkwardly caught it, nearly staggering to the floor, than she threw him a second.

"What're these—? Oh. To sleep on?"

"If we live long enough, yes," Taeauna replied, calmly choosing two more weathercloaks for herself, that looked even larger. She headed out of the room, adding over her shoulder, "Yet they must see another use first."

He hurried to catch up, stepping on the end of one of the cloaks and almost falling.

"Quick but quiet" Taeauna chided. "And alert me—quietly!— if you see a beast, or any movements in the shadows."

"Yes," Rod whispered, wondering if there was ever going to be a time in Falconfar when he'd know what was going on.

He concluded that the most likely answer to that was: Probably not. Ever.

But was it any different, for any adventurer?

"HOLD! WHO ARE you? Stand where you are—come no nearer!"

The approaching man stopped, half-cloak swirling. "Stay your sword," he said with a sigh. "I'm seeking the jakes, not murder. I presume you're guarding the doors at your back?"

"I am," the burly knight before the doors snapped, "and no one not known to me may come closer. My lord of Silvershields sleeps within, and his safety is my charge."

"Fair enough. I wish him pleasant snores, and you a safe and uneventful shift of guardianship. Yet I fear the latter stands imperiled."

The knight scowled. "What are you, some sort of wizard? Why all the fancy talk?"

"My manner of speech comes naturally to me, O Sentinel of Silvershields. Particularly when I'm irked."

"Irked, are you?" The guardian's sword came up. "So you dispute my duty?"

"No. I merely observe that this passage leads past the doors you guard, not to them. I also fail to remember ever being told by Klarl Annusk Dunshar, current Seneschal of Galathgard, that the right of Arduke Helgorr Silvershields to safe slumber extended to barring the use of this passage—the way to the jakes—to others. And when it comes to matters of authority, he's only an arduke, and you're only a knight."

"Oh?" The knight's sneer was not pretty, and his sword flashed as he hefted it threateningly. "And I suppose you're the High King of Galath?"

"No. Not yet. Just now I'm merely Lordrake Haemgraethe Sarlvyre. If you'd been more polite, you might even have lived long enough to see my coronation. As it is, however—"

The slim sword darted at the knight, gleaming low. The knight slashed down at it, but it was gone, darting up and over his blade to thrust deep into his left eye.

It found the right eye, too, before the guardian could sag all the way to the floor.

Then it was wiped clean across the dying man's slack, gaping mouth, and resheathed, because even a lordrake needs both hands to unclasp his codpiece. It was still a long way to the jakes.

With a satisfied sigh, Sarlvyre finished emptying his bladder and glanced at the closed doors beside him, toying with the idea of passing through them to kill Silvershields. He'd never liked the man much... but no, it was early days yet.

Let Brorsavar's head roll first, and then the real fun could begin.

HERE," TAEAUNA ANNOUNCED suddenly, thrusting her cloaks atop the ones Rod was already holding, and paying no attention as their weight took him to his knees. "Your task, Lord Rod. I'll be needing all of them flapped out horizontally—like a rug or a coverlet you're trying to let fall more or less unfolded, to cover all the floor you can. Move around as much as you can without getting in my way or taking a blade through you, and cover as much floor as you can. Right in front of the door, where we find them."

"Taking a blade through me? And finding what?"

The Aumrarr pointed. "Those." She was indicating a number of slender things on the floor, strewn in front of a lone dark door in front of them. That closed portal stood in gloom on the far side of a band of bright, cool moonlight, but it looked massive. The things on the floor were slightly curved, and gleamed.

Swords. He was looking at six or seven—or more—swords, lying on the floor.

"They guard the armory," Taeauna explained calmly. "I doubt the command words I know will still work, so when I approach too closely, they'll rise and dart at me. Unless you want to die, take great care to stay a little farther away from the door than I am, as you throw the cloaks. Be sure not to trip me up or get in my way as you do so, because I'm going to have to move quickly. The moment the cloaks are down, no matter what sort of a tangled mess you make of them, run right over there—"

She pointed again.

"—to the pillar standing at yon corner. You'll find a snarling lion face carved in the stone, at about chest level for you. Pull its tongue down, firmly. And please don't waste any time doing any of this, or we'll both die." She eyed him. "Got all that?"

By the Falcon, she was as calm as if she were giving directions to find a jar of raisins in her pantry.

"When the swords rise," he replied, finding his mouth suddenly dry. "throw cloaks down in front of door, covering as much of it as I can but keeping out of your way and farther from the door than you. Then run to the pillar as fast as I can and pull the lion's tongue down."

His heart was starting to race.

"I have a very bad feeling about this," he blurted out, the cloaks feeling even heavier now.

"Not nearly as bad as I'll feel, if something goes wrong," Taeauna told him, flashing a sudden smile.

God, it lights up her face like the sun. I'll do anything to make her smile like that.

Even fight off swords that fly around trying to stab me.

"And just who thought these up?" Rod asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of the swords lying so still and innocent on the floor. "Holdoncorp?"

"Malraun," the Aumrarr replied. "Ready with the first cloak yet?"

Rod sighed and bent to arrange the cloaks in three side-by-side rolls, hefting the fourth roll ready in his hands. He was hoping he could flick it open in midair like the red carpets in cartoons, but he already doubted things would go that smoothly. Rod's life was Rod's life, and cartoons were... cartoons.

Taeauna gave him a grin that startled him—did she know what he was thinking? If so, how the hell had she ever managed to see Saturday morning cartoons?—hefted two of her daggers, and stepped forward.

On the floor, like the brooms in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the swords stirred.

"Aras brack," Taeauna announced crisply. "Taerlo muhaervo haras hrack."

She started forward—and the swords, seven of them, rose from the stone floor like sleepy dogs shaking themselves awake, hanging points down for a moment, then sped to the attack.

"Now, Rod," she snapped, charging at them and smashing aside the nearest flying blade with her dagger.

Then she was ducking, darting and dancing in the heart of them, leaping about wildly in acrobatics Rod scarcely saw as he focused on tossing cloaks, swirling them out and letting them go. The damned things hung in the air so long, settling ever so slowly...