Falconfar 03-Falconfar (9 page)

And that man, that bumbling Rod Everlar, was the last hope of Falconfar.

She believed that still, even if that belief had been something Lorontar had birthed in her, had nurtured into a fierce certainty over years of deft dream-weaving. Seeing Rod's face before her now, conjured up out of memory—mouth agape in astonishment, eyes full of that familiar, infuriating helplessness, as lost as a rabbit in her grasp—Taeauna found herself smiling.

Even when the armor-plate that always dug into her ribs did so again now, bringing the familiar raw pain as it sliced anew into the deep weal in her flank, she smiled.

She believed.

Oh, yes, she did. That helpless, bumbling idiot was the hope of Falconfar.

If she could keep him alive long enough to destroy Lorontar—for he was the only one who could, if anyone could—and become the Lord Archwizard in truth, that hope might just become something more.

Giving her—giving all Falconfar—a world free of wizards fell and mighty enough to be called Dooms, and all their hosts of lorn and Dark Helms and greatfangs. A place where veldukes like Darendarr Deldragon could rise to rule well, and the gruffly honest likes of Eldalar of Hollowtree and Tindror of Tarmoral could flourish in their smaller domains, and folk could enjoy seasons of peace and good harvests again.

"My thoughts," she told herself huskily, finding herself about to choke on fresh tears—she didn't have the Falcon-be-damned time for them, just now—"are like a bad ballad. A proper weepwailer."

She swung her heavy shoulder-plates over her head and into place, smacking herself across the face with at least two of their dangling buckles. As usual.

"Ow," she said. True Aumrarr suffer in silence, the saying went. A stupid saying, now that she thought about it. So was that more of Lorontar's meddling, or herself, freed of it?

She shrugged and set to work finding straps and buckles and mating them up properly. Being as there was no nimble-fingered maid or Stormar shieldguard to do that for her.

Malraun would probably have bedded them and then blasted them to ashes, if there had been.

Just as he would have served her, if she hadn't been useful as a lure for Rod Everlar, a handy lass in which to slake his lusts—and a thrall he could send into peril, or escape if need be into the mind of, just as Lorontar had done.

Now, that would have been utter doom, if Malraun and Lorontar had each found her mind a mite crowded with the other one there, and decided to fight it out inside her head.

She shuddered at a brief, vivid image of her head bursting on her shoulders like rotten fruit, drew on her gauntlets, shifted the hilts of her scabbarded blades and reached for her helm.

With all wizards out of her head for the moment—forever, if she could manage it, though that was more grim determination than anything she had any power to prevent—it was time to get back to work. She had to salvage all she could of Falconfar from all wizards. Which, right now, meant rescuing Rod Everlar.

She strode across the room, flung wide the door—and came to an abrupt halt. The room beyond was icily silent, and the men in it had swords drawn.

Two of them, whose tense shoulders were right in front of her, were the guards charged by Malraun to let no one approach the bedchamber. They were facing down five warriors; four expressionless bodyguards and their burly, glowering master—who was one of Malraun's army commanders. Korauth of Belamber, fearless but with a temper to match his flame-red hair, scowling brows and full beard. He was scowling right now, his helm in the crook of his arm just as Taeauna's was, and full, freshly-polished armor gleaming on him.

He hadn't been one of Taeauna's favorites when at his best, and he was far from at his best now.

"Wench!" he snapped, "where's your master?"

"Elsewhere," she flung back at him, and to the guards added a curt, "Stay your blades."

The doorguards obeyed her, but Korauth's bodyguards did not. She gave each of them a long, cold stare, but all that accomplished was to make them shift their swords from raised in general menace to pointing right at her.

"Disobedience," she observed softly, "tends to end in death."

"Enough, bed-lass; you don't command here!"

Taeauna turned her stare to Korauth. "As a matter of fact, Korauth, I do. You can dispute that with Malraun if you'd like to... but I'll wager much you won't like to." She raised an eyebrow in mocking query. "Well?"

"Well, there's no time for this foolishness!" Korauth started to pace, waving his helm for emphasis. It took him only one sighing whirl around back to face her to tell Taeauna that he was deeply worried beneath his bluster. "We have troubles!"

"Troubles, lord?" Taeauna lowered her voice and stepped closer, like a confidante rather than a challenger. This man was scared.

"Lorn have been seen lurking," he blurted. "Not once, but scores of times now. They're spying on us, following us—drawing back from battle when we try to cross swords with them. They all have swords, too!"

"And?" she asked gently, knowing there was more. Lorn in the Raurklor were a real danger, but hardly something new.

"Greatfangs have been seen in the sky! A line of them, low down yonder—" He waved an arm at the wall behind him. "Winging their way, straight across. Six of them."

He started pacing again. "More than that, small magics cast by Lord Malraun have been fading away; the glow-lamps, the horse-calmings. The men are unsettled."

He waved his other arm, and added heavily, "And none of us battle-lords know what to tell them."

Then, as she'd known he would, Korauth whirled around to face her and snarled, "So, woman: where by the flying Falcon is Malraun? Rutting takes not that long, he's never been seen to need much sleep, and we'd have felt it if he'd been spinning mighty spells in there—so what have you done with him?"

THE GLOW BOBBED with Rod as he ran, clutched against his chest with everything else. He should be using it like a flashlight, but that would draw the greatfangs right to him—

Behind him, the ceiling was torn away like a kid tearing aside cellophane to get at a toy underneath. No, not a toy. Chocolate. A big hunk of rich, succulent chocolate.

And he was that hotly-sought treat. Never mind the glow from the spindle, it was after him anyway!

Get lower down, deeper into Malragard, down into the lowest cellars where the ceilings would be layers of solid stone, not timber beams and cross-boards and—

Rod blundered into the edge of an unseen doorframe and through it, running on until the floor suddenly opened up under his boots and he fell—headlong down bruisingly-hard stone steps.

It was a long and steep flight of steps. He'd never been so happy to fall down stairs in his life, but the third bounce spilled some of his loot out of his grasp. Rod let it all go, making a grab only for the spindle-light, raking it in as he fetched up in a ball on a stone step with a chipped, saw-sharp edge.

"I'm a writer," he gasped into the darkness, feeling that edge biting into his shoulder, "not a fucking warrior—or cross-country runner, for that matter!"

Rod's breath ran out before he could vent any more, and he lay there panting for what seemed a long time—as more of the tower groaned and shrieked and was torn away, somewhere back above him—until he could find strength and air enough to roll over, banging his knees and elbows, and aim the spindle-light.

He willed it brighter, and it obligingly showed him that these stairs ran down not to a door, but into the open darkness of a lower level, with passages running off—cold, dank stone, all blocks of different sizes, fitted together, with old mold everywhere on them—in several directions.

Not deep enough. He needed solid stone around him to be safe from the talons behind him, though there was always the risk of being entombed by all their digging. Surely the greatfangs wouldn't keep after him forever, when there must be easier prey around? After all, he hadn't done them any harm; their rage couldn't be at Rod Everlar.

Oh, shit. Unless a wizard was guiding their thoughts. Using them, like trained dogs, to do his digging for him. No, worse than trained—mind-thralled, enslaved to be as controlled as the knives and forceps a surgeon held in his hands when cutting into a patient.

Urrgh. Enough of that.

Rod banished thoughts of spurting blood and steaming red innards and got himself down the rest of the steps just as fast as he could scoop up the things he'd dropped. One of them had broken in half, and he stopped long enough to peer hard at it in the light of the spindle, then shrug and toss its pieces away. It didn't look as if it had ever held magic, but if it had, all that power was fled now. It was just broken.

Someday, if he ever became Lord Archwizard in truth, he'd come back and find those two pieces and Shape them back together and make it something magic. Someday.

If ever.

Right now, he had four—no, five; one of them split into two about three strides along it—passages to choose from, and a greatfangs right at the head of the stair now, its long talons reaching down...

Rod chose the largest-looking passage and sprinted along it, arms wrapped more securely around his loot. What need would a powerful wizard have to hide the way to his lower cellars? Who would dare go snooping after his secrets, when an invisible, silently waiting spell could turn them into frogs if they reached the wrong place?

Wait. Turn him into frog, too?

"Shit," he gasped aloud, running hard. "Shit shit shit shit shit." Ah, we writers; so eloquent, aren't we?

He found himself grinning at that—a grin that widened as the passage came to an end in a stair leading down, a stair that for the

first time had walls and—yes!—a ceiling of rough, chisel-scarred stone. Solid rock at last!

It could end up being his tomb, yes, but then so could any patch of grass or castle room in all Falconfar, with a greatfangs—or six—chasing him. And the one fate might lurk in the future, whereas the other awaited him right now.

The stairs started to curve, angling around to the right and becoming even steeper. Colder, too—and for the first time it occurred to Rod that the magic that gave the spindle its glow might have limits. He'd better know how to grope his way back to this stair in utter darkness, from wherever he ended up at the bottom of it.

Which was going to be someplace pretty darned deep, by the looks of things. A vast labyrinthine world in the darkness under the earth, like in so many fantasy novels he'd read; so many endless copies of Moria?

The stairs took a last abrupt hook to the right and ended, in another level of passages and doors that looked very like the one he'd just left.

It was cold here, and very quiet; the noises of Malragard being destroyed had faded away entirely, leaving him alone in stillness.

Where Rod stood, not fleeing anything for the first time in ages, realizing suddenly how tired he was.

Bone-effin'-weary. Oh, his thoughts were racing along (here I am, not knowing where I am or what to do next or what all this stuff is that I'm carrying—as usual); he felt no urge or need to yawn or anything like that. It was his arms and legs, bruised and numb from all the unaccustomed work he'd demanded of them, that were tired right out.

Not that anything like a soft bed looked likely, down here in all this stone. Still, perhaps behind one of these doors there'd be a heap of—of—turnips, or something, that he could just flop down on, making sure he propped the door open with a lot of them, and...

The nearest door was black, blackness that crumbled and flaked off at his touch. Iron, or something like it, painted black. Counterweighted, so loose in its stone frame that it couldn't possibly be rusted shut—or ever rust shut, for that matter—and adorned with the symbol of the Falcon in flight.

Which meant... what?

A temple? Something sacred? He had no idea.

Rod sighed, hoping he'd not be facing some fearsome monster in a moment, and tugged the door wide.

Silence. Dark, chill, still silence. A smallish stone room—no other doors—with irregular dark heaps all around its walls. Had he found his turnip-pile? He couldn't smell anything particularly bad, or for that matter anything at all...

He took a cautious step closer to the pile on his right, aiming the spindle-light as if it was some sort of weapon, to get a better look at it. Were those cobwebs, or—?

The pile moved, not just in front of his eyes but all around him. Rod backed away hastily, choking on sudden fright.

All around him things were erupting, shedding the enshrouding darkness. It was crumbling, falling away like loose black dirt—to reveal brown and yellow bones.

Bones now standing upright, moving in eerie silence. No, not standing, attached to each other but floating, dangling in the air like marionettes without strings. Hanging-on-nothing arrays of bones, with dark and eyeless skulls hovering in the air above all the rest.

Skeletons, dozens of human skeletons, all of them clutching rusted, jagged remnants of swords.

Swords they were pointing at him.