Dark Lord

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The sword spat purple lightning that was mightier than Deldragon's blade. Rod turned away from the cooked, smoking hulk of the crocodile, smiling and shaking his head. He hadn't even tried the scepter yet.

His stomach rumbled again. Hmm. It wasn't likely that an abandoned, half-ruined castle would have pleasant edibles lying around for the taking, and he'd certainly seen none. Nor had he ever heard of or written about any sort of magic sword or wand or anything in Falconfar that conjured up food. It was just one of the things enchanted items didn't do. Blast things, yes, change their shapes, all of that, but not serve forth steaming, filling food.

There were all those half-remembered fairy stories about mud and weeds being turned into mouth-watering food that got eaten, and then the magic wore off and the diners got very, very sick as, inside them, the transformed viands turned back to what they'd been before the magic got at them. That was probably why he'd never written about such things in Falconfar.

The Holdoncorp designers had put little glowing tankards into their games; you touched one (usually at full run, fleeing or charging at monsters), it flashed and vanished, and you were instantly healed and made bright with fresh energy. But somehow, in their games you never actually sat down and ate.

All of which meant that he could wander around this castle collecting these glowing, humming, monster-blasting goodies until he collapsed from lack of food and water. Fairly soon.

He had to get out of Yintaerghast. And find someone who'd feed him instead of killing him, without Taeauna at his side to know what to do, how to pay and speak and all of that. Without her beauty to lower bows and open doors. Taeauna…

No! Rod turned and slammed his fist against the wall, not caring how much it hurt. He was not going to slide back into tears now; he was not!

She was gone, and that was it. Nothing was going to bring her back.

"But I," he promised the silent gloom in a fierce whisper, "am now at war with the wizard Arlaghaun. And every last lorn in Falconfar. I will blast them all. In her name, I will blast them all."

And for that, he would have to give in to the whisperings in his head. The ones that had started the moment he'd touched the sword floating inside the pillar. The ones that were urging him on, right now, to cross this room and pass through the hidden door he could not yet see, and in a chamber beyond do thus and so, to gain an enchanted, hidden circlet and gorget.

Even a Lord Archwizard could never have too many gewgaws that blasted this and set fire to that. Magic wasn't limitless, and there were a lot of lorn.

Not to mention three Dooms who might take a lot of blasting.

Rod gave in to the whisperings. It seemed to him that he trudged around Yintaerghast for a long time, growing increasingly light-headed, dry-throated, and afflicted with rumbling of the innards; and increasingly weighed down with items that glowed and tingled with power, a belt and a baldric bristling with them, plus all the things he was wearing.

There came a time when at last the whispering told him to go back to the castle door he'd first come in by.

He obeyed, and came down the great stair just itching to raise a little scepter of twisted silver metal set with sky-blue gems. The moment it came into his hand, and glowed as if pleased to be selected, the swirling milk-white void outside the door melted away, to reveal…

The starlit darkness of a night lit by a low moon. Rod Everlar stepped out onto the sward half-expecting to find Arlaghaun standing like a statue waiting for him, wearing a cruel smile as lorn rose in clouds from the trees to rend him. Lorn that might well have perched up in those boughs to tear Taeauna's dangling body apart. He felt sick.

Something stirred in him, then. Something colder and firmer than the whisperings, but in the same place. Something that ran up his spine and forced him upright, abandoning his grieving shudderings, to lurch away across the grass until Yintaerghast loomed well behind him.

Then he found himself turning, to face northeast, and running a hand along his belt until his fingers were resting on the carved ivory head of a dagger. It glowed, and Rod was abruptly… elsewhere.

On a bare, high hill above rolling farmland, with the mountains much closer and woods mere dark and distant smudges under the moon.

He tried to gaze all around since this view of Falconfar was beautiful, serene under the stars, but that cold firmness within him-was making him turn slightly, to look at a particular height on the horizon, and reach for the dagger again.

The moonlit hill suddenly held a standing, staring Rod Everlar no longer. He was now two long, teleportational journeys away from Yintaerghast, where a dark, taloned creature flapped bat-like wings to rise off a branch and streak off toward Ult Tower, to warn Arlaghaun.

The wizard with the sharp nose and the blazing brown eyes was halfway up the long hall before he mastered his temper, and turned abruptly aside to thrust two fingers into the eyes of a statue, to cause the wall behind it to roll back.

"By the Falcon," he whispered softly, seeking to let out a little of the rage still towering in him.

His own guardians had been roused against him. He hated to blast and mangle his own work, but he would hate even more to be injured and then slain by his own hacking, punching automatons. The lorn and Dark Helms would gleefully swarm him if they saw him struggling along, wounded.

Arlaghaun drew on a pair of gauntlets he'd hoped he'd never to have to use, donned a cloak that would enable him to fly as deftly as any lorn, and caught up a staff from behind the door that was taller than he was.

Cloak swirling, he left the hidden room, drew its door closed, whispered a word to the door, and kissed it, to seal it to all creatures save himself.

Then he turned hastily to face the dozen or so marching metal giants that were already headed toward him.

Arlaghaun hefted the staff, smiled a grim smile, and blasted the foremost striding titan to shrieking, tinkling shards. The other guardians kept coming, mindlessly.

He raised the staff and fired again. The largest metal automaton plunged face-first to the floor, its slow topple ending in a thunderous crash.

Arlaghaun used his cloak to leap and then hover aloft, that he not be hurled off his feet. All around him rang out lesser crashes, as just that fate befell the other guardians.

He let his thin lips form a warmer smile. He would rule in Ult Tower again. Very shortly. Even if it had no guardians left.

Except him.

"It's another of those nights," one knight in magnificent armor said to another, who'd just arrived to relieve him.

"Where he just sits, staring at nothing and breathing? Like he's empty?"

The first knight nodded sourly, stepped around the new arrival, and strode off down the dark passage that led out of Galathgard.

Across the moonlit courtyard was the gatehouse, and in the gatehouse there was a fire, and smoked meat hanging over the table in front of it, and a great wheel of cheese, and casks and casks of wine, and a bed.

So he hurried. Until he came out into the moonlight, when he couldn't help but stop and stare in amazement at what was blocking his way onwards. And shouldn't have been there.

Barefoot in the ruins, stunningly beautiful in the moonlight, a nude woman was standing waiting for him.

Aye, for him. She was looking right into his eyes, and smiling provocatively, her arms spread welcomingly. Pert and saucy, impish…

Beautiful… Falcon, what a beauty! Those breasts, large and night-dark smiling brown eyes, and… He'd just started to notice the wings soaring up behind her shoulders when strong fingers caught hold of his helm from above and jerked it around sideways with brutal force. All the way around.

And then he was beyond noticing anything at all, ever.

"Dauntra," the owner of those strong, scarred hands commented, letting the knight fall into a lolling, lifeless heap. "I get to do the preening and posing next time. You look about as alluring as a carthorse."

"Spare us your preferences, dear," Dauntra replied serenely. "And there isn't going to be a 'next time.' That's the last bodyguard, save for the three who are in there with him until morning."

"Well, I'll be the one who strips down and minces in to distract them, then. You've had your fun."

"How so? You killed him before I could! And before you come up with a jest about my loving the dead, Juskra, just leave off trying, hmm? I've heard them all before, anyway."

"I'm not surprised, sister," Juskra said sweetly. "Here, hold this."

"Am I your dressing-maid, now?"

"Oooh, now there's a calling that suits you. I-"

"Juskra," Ambrelle interrupted severely, "will you shut up? Just get your clothes off and get in there. Lorlarra should be in place by now, and I'll be right behind you." The oldest of the four Aumrarr hefted her sword meaningfully, tossing her magnificent purple-black mane. "And if you stoop to any more such sauce when we're in there, I'll feed this up your backside!"

"Sister!" Bared, the fiercest of the four Aumrarr was a mass of crisscrossing sword-scars; her forearms looked like white snakes were tangled tightly around them. Which made her mock-scandalized pose, fingertips at her throat and eyes wide, all the more ridiculous.

The three Aumrarr chuckled together, and Dauntra held out her arms to receive the last of Juskra's war-harness.

Giving her a look, the scarred Aumrarr filled those waiting arms, and then defiantly peeled off her yellowed and stained bandage, and laid that on top of the heap, too.

"Juskra," Dauntra growled softly.

The scarred Aumrarr elegantly put out her tongue in reply.

The King of Galath muttered something darkly, under his breath, and stirred in his great chair, booted feet sliding along the polished tabletop. The fire crackled unregarded in the hearth.

"Pardon, your majesty?"

King Devaer lifted his eyes to give the knight standing over him an unfriendly look. "I said: I want a woman."

"But majesty…"

"I know, Glaroskur, I know. Not a wench within a day's ride of this crumbling ruin, and I don't fancy the backsides of any of you. But what's the good of being glorking King of Galath, and Lord of the rutting Falcons, too, if I can't have a woman? Go and get me a woman!"

"Majesty?"

"Go to the stables, get on a horse, take Joss and Rakaer with you, find some suitably beautiful woman, bring her back here without taking her yourselves, and bring her to me!"

"But your highn-"

"That was a royal command, Glaroskur!"

The knight regarded him unhappily, then bowed deeply, turned, and marched out.

Devaer sighed in bored exasperation, listening to his bodyguard's boots tramping into the echoing stone distances of cold and empty Galathgard. He hated and feared the touch of Arlaghaun's mind on his, that cold and utter tyranny, yet somehow it thrilled him, too.

And when the wizard who really ruled Galath needed him not, he felt so empty. Bored, listless, lying here in idleness, ready to scream and claw the walls…

The sounds of Glaroskur's boots stopped, and there came a strange but very brief wet, startled, choked-off sound.

The King of Galath frowned. "Glaroskur?"

Silence. He swung his feet down off the table, stood up sharply, shook out his silken sleeves, and bellowed, "Glaroskur?"

"Your majesty," a soft woman's voice said from behind him, "may I serve you, instead?"

Devaer whirled around, clapping his hand to his sword, and felt his jaw drop open. He couldn't help it; couldn't help staring, either.

The nude figure who stood barefoot in the doorway was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, and by the Falcon, she was an Aumrarr! Not a soft, yielding beauty; but a hard-muscled, sharp-jawed warrior, by her looks, her shapely body covered with sword-scars, a fierceness about her face… but a look of yearning, too, of yielding to him. She was kneeling to him, too, going to her knees more gracefully than any servant lass or highborn lady.

Devaer found his mouth was very dry, and his manhood was stirring urgently. He managed to swallow, and peered wildly around, thrusting a hand up into his lank black hair to adjust his crown without even realizing he was doing so. "Y-you're alone?"

"Quite alone," came the soft answer. "Summoned here by magic. Not meaning to, or even knowing what he did, your knight just blundered through a gate that took him to my bedchamber, far from Galath, and in the same stroke, brought me here. So it seems, as you are deprived of his vigilance, I should… guard your body."

Someone sniggered from the doorway behind him.

King Devaer whirled around again, sword flashing out, but was far too slow to block the two blades flying toward his throat.

Almost severed, his head lolled limply on his shoulders as his life-blood fountained in all directions, and he emptied his bowels and started the slow stagger that would end up on the floor.

Juskra got up off her knees without waiting to see if the body and the head stayed together when they hit the floor. She was too busy scowling. "Is that all the fun you wanted me to have? He wasn't half bad looking, and I was just warming to the task."

"I'll say. 'Guard your body,' she gasped breathlessly. Falcon, Jusk, I almost spewed!" Lorlarra jeered, clutching at her throat in mock nausea and striking a pose in the dark tatters of her armor.

"Oh, your majesty," Ambrelle twittered in mimicry, "just let me kneel here in my bared skin and worship you! Urrrkh!"

As the mock-vomiting of the oldest Aumrarr rang out loudly, Devaer's body fell heavily to the floor, sword clattering, and his head rolled free.

"Behold the King of Galath," Lorlarra said grandly, as it came to a stop near her boot.

"And Lord of Falcons," Ambrelle agreed gravely, tossing her long purple-black hair. "Don't forget that. Fetch me that crown, Lorl; I think Arlaghaun has controlled it long enough."

"Wait!" Juskra threw up her hand, frowning. "What if he traces us through it?"

"Let him," Dauntra said softly from the doorway behind her, murder in her usually impish brown eyes. "If he comes after us, we'll be ready for him. So let him try his worst, and come within reach." She hefted her sword. "I believe I'll welcome that."

Rod Everlar found himself standing on yet another grassy hilltop, turning to face a distant peak he did not recognize.

Turning because he was forced to do so. Something that dwelt in Yintaerghast-that old man in the chair? — was in his head, riding his mind. Something he might have unknowingly invited in, when picking up the first few enchanted items; it had definitely been in his mind, whispering instructions and urging him on, for his acquirings of the later ones.

And now, teleport by teleport, from hill to hill, he was being forced across Falconfar toward a definite though unknown destination.

What had that television character roared? "1 am a free man!" Well, damn it!

"I am!"

Screw this destiny shit.

"Screw it!"

Rod Everlar's shout echoed back to him off dark standing stones all around him on that particular hilltop, but they neither moved nor answered.

Dawn came slowly to Galath, and found four Aumrarr flying high and fast out of the heart of the kingdom.

Out of the dark trees below, lorn took to the air, spiraling up to meet them.

The four never slowed.

As rose-red dawn gave way to the bright sun of the morning, Juskra looked back. "I'm glad you kept crown and head together," the scarred Aumrarr called to Ambrelle. "They'll come in far more useful than just the crown."

In reply, the oldest Aumrarr smiled and held up the sack in her fist, purple-black hair streaming out behind her as she flew.

Then her face changed to its usual severe expression, and she pointed down with her other hand at the swiftly climbing lorn. "Sisters mine, we have visitors."

"Six-and-twenty," young and beautiful Dauntra called, having just finished counting them. "Let us see what they decide to do if we ignore them, and just fly on."

Lorlarra nodded. "Well said," she called back. The ongoing disintegration of her armor had left her almost bare, but trailing a tangle of dark straps and armor plates.

So the four Aumrarr did just that, turning not a handspan aside from their chosen path. The lorn circled uncertainly in front of them, trying to catch their eyes.

All four Aumrarr met their gazes, gave them polite, pleasant smiles, and flew straight on.

The lorn traded puzzled frowns with each other, flapped hastily aside to meet and confer in harsh whispers, and then turned to look again at the four Aumrarr, now past them and streaking steadily away across the sky, as straight as four speeding arrows.

The winged women did not look back.

After several brief and uncertain hissed exchanges that decided nothing, the lorn dropped away, seeking their forest perches again.

The door blew inward, shards and dust swirling and bouncing in the short passage that led to his main scrying-room.

"Amalrys?" Arlaghaun spat out her name, his thin lips even tighter than usual, letting her hear all of his anger in that icy query, letting his magic carry his quiet voice the length of the ruined hall.

There came no answer. But then, he hadn't intended to wait for one.

His many shieldings-even the strongest one, that could hold up Ult Tower if it was hurled down on his head-were up and flaring in front of him as he strode down the hall, brown eyes afire and sharp nose twitching, his hands flexing in his hunger to throttle his disloyal apprentice.

He stopped dead. Many of the scrying-crystals had shattered, their magic now but sparkling dust and ash on the floor, and draped across the frame that held the surviving stones, smoke smudged around her gaping mouth and empty eyesockets, her bare body covered with ash, lay Amalrys.

She was very still. The Doom of Galath stared hard at her for a long moment, and then peered swiftly all around the room. Then he sent forth his shieldings in a questing cloud.

There were no sudden flarings to mark lingering spell-traps on her or between him and where she lay; Arlaghaun strode to her and took her in his arms.

She was lighter than he remembered. Chains chimed softly as limp limbs sagged; her body was cold.

Arlaghaun held her across one arm, as if she weighed nothing, and with his other hand stroked her honey-blonde hair. His thin lips quivered, just once, but his burning eyes remained dry and hard.

Taking her by the chin and turning the ruin of her face away, the Doom of Galath idly entertained thoughts of making love to what was left of his Amalrys one last time.

She was beautiful still, but where would the thrill of surrender come from? His memories would outshine all, and they would serve him until he captured someone better. And that would be soon.

He let her body fall and turned away, somewhat wearily telling the still air around him, "Behold. Arlaghaun is master in his own castle again."

The still air declined to answer, of course.

Arlaghaun walked back down the passage, dismissing for now thoughts of just how many guardians he'd had to blast and maim to make that claim, and put his hand on a particular stone.

It glowed obediently, and took him in an instant to another room, where a blank, solid wall stood in front of his nose.

"One more thing to do before I compel Klammert," he murmured. "Somehow, there's always one more thing to do."

Arlaghaun thrust a hand at the wall, and it melted away at his touch; he stepped through the wall as if it wasn't there, into a large hall choked with the broken, heaped bodies of guardians.

Picking his way around them, he reached the mirror and slid it back into place, to once more conceal the passage that led to his escape gate.

Scenes were moving in the mirror. Folding his arms across his chest, Arlaghaun stepped back to watch.

The load of stone plunged down out of the sky and slammed into the mud like a giant's fist, bursting apart in all directions. Hurtling stones sent men and horses screaming alike as they were tumbled, crushed by thudding stones, and then buried.

"Glorking Deldragon!" Baron Chainamund snarled through his bristling straw-yellow mustache, retreating hastily for all his great bulk. "Where's he getting all this stone from?"

"The houses of Bowrock that we're smashing down with our catapults, Chainamund," Klarl Snowlance replied wearily, in his reedy voice. "Ondurs, could you judge just where that was fired from?"

Marquel Mountblade was busy wiping dust from his everpresent monocle; he paused just long enough to shake his head. "Somewhere near the northeast tower," he replied sourly. "Which is about as much as we already knew. We're going to be here a long time, lords."

"Right," Arduke Stormserpent said briskly, a rare smile on his usually stern, dark face. "I'll have my playpretties brought in by coach, then. And the uppermost racks of my wine cellar."

Those words brought Velduke Brorsavar's head around, huge in its gleaming helm. Thankfully, it, too, was wearing a smile. "Will you be sharing, Laskrar?"

"But of course, lord. For the greater glory of Galath," Stormserpent replied with a low, sweeping bow.

"Ah, now, that's the best news I've heard these last five days!" Arduke Windtalon put in, turning from the maps of Bowrock he'd been peering at. He'd used his helm to hold one corner of their curling edges down, freeing his shoulder-length mane of copper-colored hair. There was a certain eagerness in his almond-hued eyes. "As Mountblade says, these fortress walls aren't going away anytime soon."

Several of the Lords of Galath tried to peer up through all the drifting smoke, past the chaos of dead horses and heaped rubble and tents, at the battlements looming somewhere near, but the smoke was too heavy, just now, to see anything properly.

Arduke Lionhelm stiffened, and pointed right up into the sky overhead. His handsome, hawk-eyed face wore a look of astonishment. "Look! Aumrarr! "

"Aumrarr? Here?"

"They're either spying, or running missives for Deldragon," Baron Chainamund snarled, sweat running down his florid face. "Shoot them down!"

Smoke promptly hid the winged women from view, even as a bowman came crashing through the rubble, calling, "Lord? Your will?"

"Ignore him," Velduke Brorsavar snapped, his gleaming-armored shoulders as broad as the two nobles standing beside him put together, "and get back to your post. Shoot at nothing until I give such an order, or Velduke Bloodhunt, yonder, does."

"Aye," Arduke Lionhelm agreed. "Barons tend to slay too swiftly, and then storm about raging that they can't question corpses, after."

"Lords," the bowman said gravely, bowing low. Then he rose, turned, and fled back through the rubble even as Chainamund roared, "How dare you, Lionhelm?"

"Very easily," the arduke replied with a shrug, his hawk-eyes hard. "I grow weary of foolishness, Chainamund. Dispense with it, and we'll get along fine. Spew more of it, and I'll begin to consider how well Galath will get along with one less blustering idiot of a baron in it."

The florid baron's mustache quivered, like a bush disturbed by men fighting in it, and his face went from angry red to roiling purple. "Veldukes," he yelped, "d-did you hear that? Did you?"

The broad shoulders of Velduke Brorsavar turned, a mountain of metal moving, and their owner said coldly, "I certainly did, Glusk Chainamund. And your blusterings, too. I have time for neither. Still your tongue, or I'll find myself agreeing with Lionhelm."

Four Aumrarr came swooping out of the smoke just above his head, then, gave him wide smiles, and let go of something that fell through the air to bounce wetly on the cracked slab of stone the two veldukes had been using as a table.

The object was round; it rolled and hopped the length of the table before wobbling off one edge to thump to the ground below. And stare endlessly, bulging-eyed, up at the sky.

A noble who'd been humming to himself stopped doing so, abruptly.

"Falcon!" Marquel Blackraven swore, his emerald eyes hard as he stared at it. Behind him, Lords of Galath glanced over, stared hard, then crowded forward to stare some more.

Even if the glint of the crown hadn't still been about its brows, they all knew what it was.

The severed head of the King of Galath stared up at them, unseeing.

By the time Arduke Stormserpent and fat, florid Baron Chainamund had stopped swearing and peered into the skies again, there was no sign of the winged women. After a moment, they looked down at the head again.

"Bloodhunt!" Velduke Brorsavar bellowed into the smoke, his deep voice as strident as any war-horn. "Come quickly! I need you here!"

"So that's it, then," Arduke Windtalon said flatly, clapping his helm down over his shoulder-length copper hair. "End of siege."

"Certainly not!" Marquel Duthcrown snapped, striding forward to stand over the severed head with his sword drawn, and hastily settling his own helm back into place, wisps of stray white hair thrusting out in all directions under its edge. "Certainly not! We have a royal command to follow; a sworn duty to perform!"

"That writ ended with the severing of that royal neck," Arduke Lionhelm said firmly, "and I for one was not witness to your coronation, Duthcrown. Presume not to speak for the throne."

Duthcrown glared at him, mustachioed lip drawn back to expose his teeth, and barked, "You speak open treason! Chainamund! Murlstag!

Dunshar! To me! Stand with me, here, and guard the crown against all such traitors!"

"Before we speak of such guardianship," Arduke Stormserpent said sharply, his dark face even sterner than usual, "suppose we hew a little closer to common agreement on just who's a traitor, and why. Nobles who presume to stand in judgement over the rest of us tend to annoy me. I'm annoyed right now."

"And isn't that just too bad?" Baron Chainamund sneered, face reddening anew as he bent, snatched up the crown, and clapped it on his own head. "Stormserpent is annoyed. Pity." Twirling his great straw-yellow mustache with one fat finger, he roared, "Hear ye, all: I hereby proclaim myself King of All Galath! King Glusk, the first of that name! And I now decree that Stormserp-"

His words ended in a great gout of vomited blood that drenched the point of the swordblade that had suddenly burst forth from his ample stomach.

Arduke Lionhelm let him spew his way down to a last throat-gurgling choking before he put a boot on Chainamund's back and kicked the dying baron off his steel.

"Enough," he said, his voice ringing as cold and hard as iron. "We will have order, or there will be war here, at the very gates we're besieging. Lords, Galath will survive only-"

"How dare you?" Marquel Duthcrown cried, waving his sword. "You murder a crowned king, in front of all of us-"

"Duthcrown, be still!" came a deep roar. "Speak such foolishness to your mistresses, not to us!"

Velduke Aumon Bloodhunt, with his knights behind him, was standing atop a nearby heap of rubble, glaring down, more white than gray in his hair now, but angry blue eyes snapping as bright as ever. "I am the ranking noble here, as it happens," he added, his deep voice only a trifle quieter, "and I say Chainamund was no more king than a stable-boy who happens to lay hand on a crown and prance about with it! Let us draw off from the walls, beyond the reach of Deldragon's catapults, and hold council."

"Bah!" Duthcrown spat, striding to meet him. "For years you and the other toothless old lions have farted and swaggered and paraded before us, whenever you're not fawning and simpering before this wizard and that! Well, I'll stomach no more of it!"

Waving his sword, he charged up the slope, losing his helm in his haste, his white hair wild in the wake of its tumbling. Bloodhunt's knights rushed to meet him, swords singing out, and-

Another fall of stone crashed down from the sky, shattering and burying the men on the slope; one moment their swords were flashing in the dust, and the next, dust was drifting above a new heap of rubble, where all those men had been.

"The crown!" Klarl Snowlance shouted, his reedy voice rising as shrill as a war-horn. "Where is the crown?"

"The crown," Lionhelm bellowed, "is here!" The hawk-eyed arduke grounded his sword on a stone in front of him, and all of the converging nobles saw that its point was encircled by the Crown of Galath.

"I am not claiming it," the handsome arduke added, just as loudly. "I propose to take it into my hand and go away from the walls, as Velduke Bloodhunt has so wisely suggested. Then let us parley in peace, lords, and-"

With a great roar, burly Klarl Dunshar and two of his knights who were even larger men than their master, with their three breastplates gleaming like oversized shields, abreast, charged at Lionhelm, swords out. Baron Murlstag joined in the rush, yellow eyes flashing, and Ardukes Stormserpent and Windtalon spat curses and hastened, tall and swift, to defend Lionhelm. Swords flashed out, all around the heaps of rubble, and as the nobles who wielded them started shouting, some of their heralds and equerries sounded war-horns to spread word.

Even as stone-faced Baron Lothondos Pethmur commenced to sternly lecture the unheeding air, "I for one have no interest in continuing a siege when the man who ordered it lies dead!" the sounds of sword on sword, war-cries, and the screams of the dying arose, sudden, loud, and enthusiastic, on all sides.

To the astonishment of Deldragon's defenders on the walls above, bloody war had suddenly erupted among the besiegers below. Everywhere they could see, the Lords of Galath and their armies were killing each other.

Rod Everlar sighed as he found himself on yet another hilltop in the brightening morning.

This time, he was facing a crumbling stone door, set into a grassy hump of earth. There had been words graven into the stone, once, but they had largely crumbled away. Not that Rod needed to read them, to know that he was staring at a tomb.

He wasn't surprised in the slightest when the dweller in his mind forced him to take a scepter from his belt that he'd never used before, aim at the door, and whisper a word he did not know.

Nothing seemed to erupt from the scepter, but the door shattered as if a titan had dealt it a mighty blow.

Its stone shards bounced and rolled past Rod Everlar's feet as he lifted them to begin the short walk into waiting darkness.

In Ult Tower, a sharp-nosed wizard stiffened, his brown eyes blazing fresh fire. "Lorontar! I knew it!" he spat.

Whirling around, Arlaghaun snarled into his apprentice's face, "The shade of the undead wizard Lorontar is riding yon Shaper, controlling him, and that control comes through Lorontar's command over the enchanted items the man bears!"

Fat, scraggle-bearded Klammert had already gone pale; now he was leaning back and away, as if Arlaghaun's sharp nose was a dagger. "Aye, master," he said huskily, "but why? Why send yon man to open a tomb?"

Arlaghaun sighed in exasperation, and then explained as if to a simpleton, "He is sending Everlar to the tomb-caches of other dead wizards, to fetch and gather magics that will enable the undead Lorontar-an utterly evil and extremely powerful archwizard, even in ghostly undeath-to rise to life again!"

Klammert pointed at the mirror. "Master, he's gone in."

"Work with me!" Arlaghaun snapped. "We'll raise a gate and bury him in Dark Helms!"

"Lorn!" an archer shouted, turning to aim. The older warrior standing beside him on the battlements of Bowrock struck his bow aside, and wasn't gentle about it.

"Those are Aumrarr, fool! If you can't tell lorn from women with wings, you shouldn't be up on these walls!"

He ducked aside as a young and achingly beautiful winged woman swooped in low over the ramparts, and winked at him. Hastily he gave her back a wave and a smile.

Lorlarra, flying in Dauntra's wake in a welter of disintegrating dark armor, blew him a kiss. That raised a ragged shout of laughter from the men on the battlements.

One of them called, "Looking for someone handsome?" He struck a pose.

It wasn't hard to tell that the four Aumrarr were peering at every face as they glided along above the walls. Soon fierce and scarred Juskra made a sudden, wordless sound and pointed, and the four winged women converged.

"Friggin' Falcon!" Garfist swore, as dark wings loomed. He grabbed a sword from the man beside him as he turned to Iskarra. "They're coming for us!"

"Of course they are," she said bitterly. "Who else would they be after, in all besieged Bowrock? I know not what we did to anger the Falcon, but I wish most fervently that…"

The man whose blade Garfist had borrowed tried to snatch it back. Garfist hung on to it, offering the man a hard elbow and a harder knee instead. They struggled together as Dauntra and Juskra sped past, plucked up Iskarra by clamping firm hands around each of her bony wrists, her drawn daggers waving vainly, and flapped up into the morning sky.

Lorlarra and Ambrelle slammed right into Garfist, knocking him free of the other warrior and the other warrior's blade, and caught him by the ankles as he rolled helplessly, the men of Bowrock scattering.

A moment later, Garfist was hanging head downward in the air, high over the heart of Bowrock, with two pairs of wings beating hard above him, their owners puffing and panting, and straps and dangling plates of dark armor flailing him across the face. He roared in anger and tried to squirm free, snaring the nearest armor-strap in one hairy fist and tugging, hard.

A wing slammed into the side of his head as his captors lurched, dipping alarmingly.

"Stop fighting us! You'll die if you fall!" Lorlarra gasped, from the other end of that strap.

"Yes!" Ambrelle added severely, through her own tangle of purple-black hair. "Stop struggling; we're rescuing you from all this!"

Garfist let go of the strap, and twisted his neck around until he could glare up at her. "Why?"

"We need hands that can act where we dare not go."

"Go to do what?" Iskarra called, as her pair of Aumrarr brought her near.

"Slay Dooms, rescue Falconfar… that sort of thing."

"I see," Iskarra said weakly.