Dark Lord

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Fair morn, Lord Deldragon," Taeauna I greeted the velduke gravely, striding up to him. Rod kept a careful pace behind her, as if he were her faithful shadow. "How best can we…?"

Deldragon was wearing a smile as he lifted his hand in greeting and opened his mouth to speak, but his face fell into astonishment and anger as he looked past his two guests, his ice-blue eyes seeming to catch fire. Rod and Taeauna were turning to see what disaster was behind them as he bellowed, "Lorn! Raise the alarum! Lorn in the keep!"

Bowrock knights and armsmen erupted out of passages and doorways by the dozens, and the velduke roared, "Bows! Guard every archer we have, from this moment on! I don't want a single one harmed by lorn, and I want every glorking archer out here and filling these lorn with arrows!"

Even before the nearest knight could shout a warning, the velduke whipped around, sword leaping into his hand to precede his turn, and so, without even meaning to, spitted a lorn that was diving at him, claws spread wide and poised to rend.

Taeauna hacked at one of those claws to make sure it didn't fold up around the velduke's blade and rake him as it died; Deldragon struck its other aside himself.

It shuddered and started to curl up in death; as Deldragon shook it off his steel, kicking it toward the floor, the thunder of many hastening boots was heard in the passage the lorn had erupted from. Bowrock knights formed a line of bared steel across the passage even before the first Dark Helms burst into view.

The velduke groaned aloud at their numbers, for the passage looked to be filled for a long way back with a seemingly endless flood of gleaming black armor. "Fall back!" he shouted. "Fight and fall back, fight and fall back to the Warhorn Chamber! We'll make a stand there!"

More lorn swooped at him, over the heads of the surging army of black-armored warriors, and Deldragon pointed his blade at them as if it were a how, whispered something, and then vanished behind a sudden bright blossoming of flame from its tip. In an instant that fire filled the air before him with a roiling sphere of fire, and started to spit forth long tongues of flame.

Those tongues lashed out thrice the length of a lance to sear and sizzle lorn after shrieking lorn, until they circled away from that offered death, squalling. The velduke bellowed, "Men of Bowrock! Get out of the way!" and leveled his sword, even as knights and armsmen scampered aside, aiming it right down the throats of the onrushing Dark Helms.

Who staggered, screaming and writhing, as they cooked in their armor and flames raged among them. The velduke calmly moved his blade back and forth, seeking to immolate as many as he could. Some Dark Helms tried to struggle on into the inferno, but most turned and tried to flee, pushing and even hacking at their fellows behind them.

Yet all too soon, the flames flickered, faltered, spat, coughed, and went out, the velduke's sword going dark.

"Men of Bowrock!" he shouted. "Form a line! Spears to the fore!"

A few of the Dark Helms raced forward to try to surround the velduke, before Bowrock's knights and armsmen could block the way, but Deldragon retreated even as Bowrock spears and hurled shields struck and assailed those few bold foes, and Taeauna stepped forward in front of him like a champion, sword raised.

"Tady of the Aumrarr," Deldragon said approvingly, "again you risk yourself in my battle!"

Taeauna shrugged. "I am an Aumrarr; I fight Dark Helms. That blade of yours can't burn every last one of them."

"True," the velduke agreed grimly, as the men of Bowrock clashed with the Dark Helms in front of them. "I can't call up that power many more times ere it's exhausted; I doubt it will last through this siege. Even if I do."

"None of us will survive to see the siege begin if we don't deal with what's in your cellars now," Taeauna warned.

"The well, again?"

"No. The lorn, all these Dark Helms; look at them! This can be no new tantlar, lord. There's a wizard somewhere in your keep who's just opened a gate. And all the armies outside your walls will pour right through it, if we don't destroy it."

Darendarr Deldragon went white and said a very dirty word. His hand shot up to stroke his flaxen mustache, as unnecessarily as always.

"Come!" said Taeauna, clapping him on the shoulder. "Leave the battle here to your knights; someone else can rally them in the Warhorn Chamber. Bring two of your best blades, and show me a way down into the cellars that isn't already full of Dark Helms!" She waved at the passage full of fighting, hacking, and dying men in bright armor and in dark. It was a. hopeless tangle of shouting combatants, heaped corpses, and the sagging or writhing dying.

The velduke stared at her for a moment, shaking his head. Then he bit his lip, whirled around, and bellowed, "Tarsil! Amandur! Belros! To me!"

"Lord, I come!" someone shouted, through the din, and "Lord!" someone else echoed; Rod saw a tall knight pushing through the milling Bowrock knights from one direction, and two armsmen doing the same from another.

The knight got there first. "Lord?"

"Tarsil," Deldragon snapped, "take command here. Try to hold the Helms, and have the archers save their shafts for any lorn they see. If many lorn break past you, or the Dark Helms press, fall back to the Warhorn Chamber and make a stand there. Do it!"

"Lord!" Tarsil acknowledged with a bow, and the velduke clapped him on the arm and turned to the two armsmen.

"Amandur, Belros! Come, out of this! With me! We're going hunting!"

Deldragon waved to Taeauna, and she nodded, ducked around some trotting Bowrock armsmen, and sprinted across the passage, Rod right behind her, and the velduke and his two armsmen right behind Rod.

The Aumrarr plunged into a side-passage that seemed, by the smell, to lead past kitchens, and slowed for the others to catch her up. "Darendarr, if you wanted to get back down to the well-chamber but not take yon passage, all choked with Dark Helms, which way would you take? And is there a goodly choice, or only a few routes?"

Deldragon shook his head ruefully. "There are dozens. My great grandsire did not build this keep with thoughts of defending it floor-by-floor, up or down, in mind. Do you think haste on our part is most important, or descending by a way least likely to meet with our foes repeatedly, along the way?"

"The back way," Taeauna snapped. "As 'back' as you can fashion for us, lord. We must not get buried in lorn or Dark Helms before we find that gate!"

The velduke nodded. "Then this way!" he said, darting into another passage and starting to run. They all plunged after him. Rod kept his sword in its sheath and devoted himself to just running; he suspected he was going to be rushing around in dark stone hallways for quite some time.

Almost immediately Deldragon saw something ahead that made him snarl a startled curse and duck through a door into a very dark room. Wrenching open a door on its far wall, he led them out into a narrower, dimly lit passage, growling, "Getting more and more 'back' as we go. 'Ware! Stairs down!"

Then he seemed to plunge into the floor and disappear.

Enthusiastically, everyone followed, Rod running hard to keep up and frowning as he caught hold of an aging iron railing and swung himself around and down, plunging deeper into the stone roots of the velduke's keep.

From what he'd seen thus far, all Galathans seemed to be in a very great hurry to get themselyes killed.

The great cleaver had hewn through boar and oxen many a time, but boar and oxen seldom wore armor.

So when the furious cook swinging that cleaver puffed his way around a corner, snarling out obscenities as fast as he could breathe, and came face to face with a trio of chuckling Dark Helms, the hard-swung cleaver rebounded from the black breastplate of the foremost warrior, ringing in protest and trailing sparks.

Boar and oxen seldom thrust swords at a cook, either.

The head cook of Deldragon's keep would then have perished swiftly indeed if a second wave of Dark Helms hadn't charged out of a side-passage beyond the grinning trio, roaring triumphal roars, and thrust forth a forest of gleaming blades that forced the incongruously bosomed Garfist Gulkoon to desperately windmill his arms into a wild, skidding stop.

Spitting out fervent curses of his own, Garfist tried to turn and flee back the way he'd come and blundered right into the backs of the trio of Dark Helms menacing the cook, sending them toppling and sprawling helplessly.

They shouted in fear. So did the cook whose cries doubled in volume and fervency a moment later, when his seven undercooks and scullions ran right into his backside, hurling him helplessly forward atop the three Dark Helms.

Whom Garfist shed like a cloak of tumbling men as he burst out and upwards from beneath all the wallowing, flailing bodies, to lumber away down a thankfully empty passage, gaining speed as he went. The boar carcass, looking a little more ragged and worn, still trailed behind his large and hairy left hand.

No sooner had he vanished into the distant darkness than Iskarra "Vipersides" burst into view out of the passage he'd turned back from, running hard and panting harder.

"Old blundering ox," she gasped, "you'll be the glorking death of me yet!"

The wave of Dark Helms who'd set Garfist to flight were butchering their way enthusiastically through the kitchen staff and the trio of their fellow Dark Helms alike, gleefully hewing a clear path forward. They promptly tried to make Iskarra's breathless observation true, reaching for her with their blades.

She leaped forward into a somersault under those swords, yanking a hairpin out of her hair in mid-tumble, and sprinted off down the passage after Garfist.

The few surviving cooks and scullions, shrieking for all they were worth, pelted after her. A flood of Dark Helms ran after them, slashing and stabbing at the air, and as they caught up to each kitchen, worker in turn, they butchered screaming, sweating flesh, too.

As cook after cook was loudly murdered behind her, Iskarra ran on, hoping the Dark Helms now pursuing her weren't spellguarded against skaekur. If fair fortune was with her for once, she'd not have to find out, but fair fortune so seldom rode escort with her these days that…

Her pessimism was promptly proved well founded. She came to a passage-moot at last, and had to stop to peer wildly, trying to see which of the three diverging ways Garfist had taken.

He'd turned down the last passage she shot a glare along, of course. Looking took just enough time that the foremost Dark Helms pounced before she could get started down that passage, roaring hloodthirstily and hacking at her like woodcutters impatient to split kindling.

Iskarra flung herself at their ankles, tripping one into his fellows. That took two black-armored warriors to the floor and left a third clawing his way free of them, off balance and with sword swinging wildly to try to regain his footing.

Iskarra sprang up from the floor like a leaping frog to crash into his chest with both bony knees and stab his face repeatedly with her hairpin. The Dark Helm went down hard on his back, shouting, and she bounced up from his chest to her feet and sprinted hard down the passage after Garfist with the Helm's shouting dying into slurred gurgles in her wake.

Three or more Dark Helms, by the sounds of running boots, were right on her heels, after her like hounds.

"Gar!" she shouted. "Gar?"

There was a lantern somewhere around a corner to the left, ahead in the passage; its light was spilling out along the walls and ceiling in the distance. Iskarra ran toward it as hard as she could, almost winded now, panting raggedly, wondering if she'd tire enough that they'd catch up to her in the open passage and hack her down from behind, too.

She could hear a lot more boots, running behind her closest pursuers, now. Great. How many Dark Helms does it take to kill one ragged, slightly tipsy, seen-brighter-days woman?

"Gar… fist," she gasped angrily, reeling around a corner. "I sure hope you… went this… way."

Garfist reached one shovel-like hand out of the darkness of a side-passage and swept her past him. Then he put his shoulder against a tall stack of wooden crates where it had been before and waited.

"Stay. Catch yer breath," he muttered. Iskarra reeled against the wall and bent over to gasp in earnest, nodding thankfully. She just needed a moment or two.

Dark Helms came thundering up, not slowing. They were headed for the next side-passage, where the lantern light was coming from.

With a grim smile on his face, Garfist Gulkoon leaned forward, grotesque false breasts bouncing and bobbing, and toppled the crates.

They crashed down on the shoulder of the nearest Dark Helm, smashing him to the floor instantly. The Dark Helm right behind him ran into them with his upper body, lost his racing feet forward out from under himself, fell hard, and got the rest of the crates crashing down on him just as the next Dark Helm ran into him, and the one behind in turn crashed into them all.

Broken-bodied and senseless, the four Dark Helms said nothing at all, and by then, no one was paying them the slightest attention, because the crates had been full of ball bearings that were now flooding out into the passage with a thunder of their own, as a small, sprinting army of Dark Helms ploughed into them, shouted wildly, raising up arms and swords in a vain attempt to keep from falling, and skidded helplessly… everywhere.

"Come on!" Garfist snarled to Iskarra, turning and peeling her off the wall with one great sweep of his arm. "I can scarcely see down here, but there're crates all along both walls, full of all sorts of-"

With a wild shout, a skidding Dark Helm made it around the corner into the passage, fetching up against one wall with a crash. A second Dark Helm struck the wall right beside the first, narrowly missing impaling himself on the first Helm's sword.

Garfist spun around, caught hold of a tall stack of crates, and heaved.

The stack crashed down across the passage with a roar mingled with shrieks of splitting wood as the crates burst open, spilling forth a clanging metallic chaos of hasps and handles and hooks, dark and smelling strongly of oil. The Dark Helms fought for balance among this slithering metal, and the foremost caught hold of the next stack of crates and tried to swing his legs over and past the ironmongery.

He got halfway through his swing before the crate he was clinging to came free of its stack and pulled the stack over in his wake; helplessly he slithered feet-first into the darker passage beyond, that crate slamming into his head.

Garfist was already stepping forward, to almost delicately drive his dagger up under the warrior's helmet, into his foe's throat and up behind the jaw. Ignoring the fountaining blood, the fat ex-procurer grimly twisted his knife in deep before wrenching it forth again.

Iskarra shoved another stack of crates over the already-fallen ones, in a flood of debris that filled the passage chest-high. "We should go," she hissed. "'Twould be a pity if that next passage ran down and cross-connected with this one up yonder, and the Dark Helms just ran around and came at us that way."

"Indeed, Viper," Garfist growled with mock flourishes of dignity. "The same thought had occurred to me."

He hefted the boar carcass in his hand to make sure none of it had torn free in all the tumult, then nodded, bent to wipe his dagger clean on the leather war-harness of the Helm he'd just slain, and started off down the passage. "Isk, are ye… unharmed?"

"Only my pride, Gar. To think these young louts almost ran me down, in all that armor, too. Let's go. And before you ask: somewhere deep, cold, dark and deserted in these cellars, where we can hide for a bit and let these crazed Galathans fight their battles over our heads."

Her brisk stride turned into a trot to keep up with Garfist, before she asked, "Carve me a slice of cold, raw boar to chew as we walk, hey?"

"That's my Viper," Garfist grunted. "Any chance to sink yer teeth into raw meat."

He set to work with his dagger, and then grunted, "Come to think: ye can claim this crawlskin back any time right soon, mind. There's raw meat, if yer jaws need some work."

"Gar," Iskarra said coldly, "that's not amusing. Not at all."

Garfist shrugged. "Killing folk, I'm good at. Making them laugh, less than good."

He strode on for a bit, and then asked, around a mouthful of boar, "These Dark Helms; think ye they were sent here by 'our' wizard, since he vanished from inside the wagon?"

The woman trotting beside him stopped abruptly and put a hand on his arm, her face going pale.

"Oh, steaming dragon shit," Iskarra cursed slowly, staring up into his eyes. "Yes. He came here to open a gate, to bring them through. And he's managed it. This keep could be doomed from within, even before the siege begins!"

Korryk's feeble screams stopped not long after his struggles. He hung limply from the spheres he was now bonded to, too weak and helpless to do anything else.

The youngest of Arlaghaun's apprentices stood calmly watching the captive warrior shrivel and wither away. From time to time, Yardryk stroked his curly, dirty gold beard, his dark purple eyes thoughtful.

It would not be long now before the insatiable gate took the last of his life-force, and when it was drained, the gate would flicker violently with bloody consequences for creatures caught in it, and then fade out.

And the flow of running Dark Helms and swooping lorn would end, long before the Master desired it to. Which would have grave consequences for Yardryk, even "fresh waiting grave" consequences, one might say.

It was time to find Korryk's replacement.

Turning his back on the gate, the unkempt apprentice stalked away, murmuring a spell over the glass eye cupped in his palm. The glass started to sear his flesh as it liquified, and then, just before the pain would have made him sob and fling it away, shaking his hand to be rid of the agony but not the blisters and later scars, it vanished, and he could scry.

It was as if a curtain was drawn back in his mind, enabling him to see rooms and passages around him at will, spread out in his mind while his eyes saw only darkness and solid stone walls all around.

Yardryk first saw the Master's forces; not so many lorn, now, but Dark Helms beyond counting, streaming forth from the gate, rushing along the largest passages and ascending every stair or ramp they saw. They were like a river, all rushing together, so he looked elsewhere. Were there other folk down in these cellars? Guards on patrol, coming closer, perhaps?

No, nothing like that. A few stray bands of Dark Helms, chasing and slaughtering Bowrock folk, a few cellarers, far away from the sound and the rushing Dark Helms, shifting some kegs and oblivious to the fighting… hold! What were these, much nearer?

A pair, standing alone, conferring in the darkness. A tryst? One of them small, a boy or a slender woman, the other, huge! Yes, huge and hairy, but breasted like a woman, both of them standing eating something in the darkness.

Never mind what or who they were; that large one should have life-force enough in her or him to feed the gate for a good long time. More than enough time as would be needed to bring through all of the Master's forces, anyway.

Yardryk smiled and stepped forward to hail and command the next few lorn to appear Out of the gate. Five or six Dark Helms, too: force enough to fetch back this new gate-fuel alive.

And more or less unharmed.

Rod Everlar fetched up against yet another wall, this time bouncing off it more than bruisingly slamming into it. Swallowing a sigh, he ran on.

If this was one of his own fantasy novels, he should-would-now do something bold and heroic, something Falconfar-shattering. Turning his modern real-world knowledge of eclipses or electricity or the tactics of Talleyrand into some dramatic, decisive, witnessed-by-all act that would make Falconaar stop and gasp in awe and then kneel before him.

To live happily ever after, ha ha bloody ha.

In a book, it was all so easy. With a few sentences he could be a god, or a superhero, or the Lord Ha Ha of Falconfar.

Here, all he could think of doing was staying close to Taeauna, keeping his mouth shut, and doing whatever seemed best as this world threw one danger or crisis after another at him.

He hadn't run so much in years as he had these last few days. Or been as frightened. Just staying alive was probably going to be his lone awesome act, if he could manage even that. Not that anybody beyond Rod Everlar would even notice, let alone be awed.

Crazy world.

He found himself fighting for breath again, as Taeauna's shapely behind started to draw farther and farther away from right in front of him.

Crazier writer.

What am I doing here?

"So," Garfist rumbled, "Dark Helms and lorn are all over these cellars. Do we dare try for the kitchens again, with most of the cooks dead and gone, mind, and see if we can get something cooked, and some wine to wash it down with, and a lantern to call our own? Or are we as likely to meet with Bowrock blades, rushing down here to sword everyone they don't recognize as one of their own?"

"Meeting with Bowrock blades is the more likely," Iskarra murmured. "Yet something cooked sounds good about now, and the wine, and I can see that look in your eye, Gar."

"I don't doubt it," the onetime procurer replied. "The kitchens it is, then. Which means we turn-"

Something large and dark came hurtling out of the darkness, flying along the ceiling with its claws outstretched, and smashed into Garfist hard enough to knock him back on his well-padded behind with a startled "Woof!"

Whatever it was struck the passage floor a good way beyond Garfist, and rolled a good way farther before coming to a stop. By which time two more flying things had pounced on Garfist, pinioning his arms.

"Lorn!" Iskarra screamed, drawing her hairpin again and her dagger and knowing they were useless as she did it. The first lorn was loping back to join the two Garfist was now struggling against, and three more were swooping at her.

"Get gone, gel!" Garfist snarled. "Run, Viper! Run!"

Iskarra dodged against the passage wall, hoping to keep the swooping lorn from striking her. And failing.

As the nearest lorn smashed into her and flung her along the wall, winded and draped over its arm, Iskarra fought against its clutching claws and her own gaspings to drive her hairpin repeatedly into one of its eyes. It squalled, splashing her with dark, sticky wetness as it died, and Iskarra fell free of it, bruising her bony elbows and wondering how long it would take the other two lorn to rend her.

Then she groaned. The passage was full of Dark Helms, running toward them.

"Flee, Viper!" Garfist roared, his bellow muffled under several struggling lorn bodies. Iskarra stared at him, or the heap of writhing lorn that he was under, and then could see it no more, as the foremost Dark Helms reached it and surrounded it in a ring.

And the rest of the Dark Helms came running for her.

Weeping, Iskarra turned and ran straight into the only lorn that had been behind her. It staggered, but she fell. Out of sheer backalley habit she kicked her legs as she did so, tripping it, and got her hairpin and dagger up into position while it was still falling. The knife skittered across lorn hide harmlessly, but her well-used hairpin sank up to her knuckles in a lorn eyeball, drenching her again and causing the dying lorn to shriek and spasm right up into the air off her.

Iskarra twisted, rolled, and came up running. Sobbing, she put her head down and ran as she'd never run before, seeking the Galathan border or the far end of the passage ahead, she cared not which.

As long as she could get there before any lorn or Dark Helm caught up to her.

Just ahead of them, the velduke slowed sharply, and then started to curse.

"What is it, Darendarr?" Taeauna asked, hurrying to join him.

"We're too late," Deldragon snapped, his ice-blue eyes blazing. "Too glorming late."

Right in front of his boots, the blood and bodies began. Dark Helms, here and huddled in a heap far down the passage. Between them, unarmored men in aprons and homespun: cooks and scullions.

Rod peered down at them and winced, feeling more than a little queasy. "If they've found your kitchens…" he said warningly, feeling even more queasy at the thought of food.

"Exactly," the velduke said grimly, stroking his mustache. "Amandur! Belros! Turn you around and go get as many men as you can and lead them to the kitchens. We'll be heading for the well. Again. Once you hold the kitchens, send most of your blades on to the well to join us. We'll be there. Alive or dead."

"But, lord!" Amandur protested. "Leave you, now? Alone down here?"

"I'm not alone. I stand with an Aumrarr and a man of mysteries. I need both of you to go, in case you encounter invaders; one man, alone, as you have just hinted, stands less chance of making it."

"Lord," Belros rumbled. "We hear and obey. Keep yourself alive, and so will we, and you'll have your blades right soon. Soon, I said; if I were you, I'd dawdle on my way to the well."

"And have them poison it, and doom us all?"

"Oh. Glorming bloody shit. Uh, lord."

Iskarra's boots felt like rocks clamped around her ankles, and her bony chest burned. Live or die, she'd not be running much farther. The thunder of Dark Helm boots was like a cruel roaring of waves crashing on rocks behind her. Not far enough behind her.

They'd catch up to her, soon. Even sooner, if a lorn came winging out of the darkness again. She could barely hold her hairpin now, let alone stab anything with it. Not that it mattered.

Not that anything mattered, without her Gar.

Let a Falconfar without Garfist Gulkoon in it be also a Falconfar without old Iskarra. Not that it would remember either of them, a day and a night from now.

Except for one Arlsakran, glorm him. And his poor daughters, all fourteen of them, if he hadn't worn any of them out and into early graves yet. He'd remember them. Much comfort would it do him.

No, she didn't much care now…

Hold! What was that, there?

Iskarra peered, stumbled, slowed hastily to keep from falling, and peered again. A grating! The first she'd seen, along all these passages, and it was askew. She looked back. No, too dark for them to see her. She bent and tugged at it and it came up in her hand.

There was a shaft down there, more than big enough for her. Right. If all she had to worry about was dozens of Dark Helms pissing on her head, so be it. She dropped her dagger into it and heard it plink off stone immediately. Ten feet down, not more.

She followed it, feet first, holding the grating above her like a hat.

And landed hard; the shaft was five feet deep, if that, but at least she had room to gently place the grating back into place above her, without any clangs or clanks. She found her dagger, and thrust it point-first into the deep darkness around her, hoping to stab anything that was lurking there before it did worse to her.

Nothing came at her out of the darkness, and she was able to snatch her breath back at last.

She was in some sort of dusty, disused basin that had once gathered some sort of liquid from overhead. Hmm, might still gather rainwater, down pipes from above. It didn't smell like a privy-sluice. And it was large enough for her to get right in under the passage floor, out of view. So she did, lying down and keeping quiet.

Just in time.

"Glork! Glorm and bloody glork! There's a way-moot here! Anybody see which way she went?"

"No," a deeper voice said gloomily. "Why the lorn aren't flying ahead of us, I don't know."

The first voice chuckled nastily. "She killed two of 'em, in less time as it takes me to say it, that's why. All of a sudden like, they decided hunting that little lass wasn't in their orders. Well, I'm not wasting time on her, either. Our orders were to bring the fat one back alive, and we've got him. She'll never be fat."

"Ah. Good idea," the deeper voice said, as two pairs of boots scraped stone right above Iskarra's head. A moment later, two streams of urine came hissing and spattering down through the grating, wetting the wall not far from her.

"I thought they'd never get him tied. Fought like a stabtentacles, he did."

"He's only half-tied now! What they did in the end was tie the three lorn wrapped around his arms to each other, with his arms somewhere inside the bundle, so to speak. I wonder if he'll manage to strangle any of them before we get back to the wizard."

"Ho, now there's something worth betting on," the nasty-voiced Dark Helm observed as he started back the way he'd come.

Iskarra lay there in the darkness, wondering how long she should wait before getting back up into the passage again. If Garfist was alive, she had to find where they were taking him.

To a wizard. He was probably doomed anyway.

"But we doomed must stick together," she whispered to herself in the darkness, and got to her feet again.

The smell of what the Dark Helms had done reminded her that it was high time she relieved herself, too. She squatted right next to their wet, to keep the rest of the basin dry.

If the Falcon flew high, she and Garfist might soon need it again.