Falconfar 03-Falconfar (14 page)

It still wasn't much of a hold. Tittle more than a muddy clearing where two streams met at a pond, with a smithy and a ramshackle am and a dozen-some log huts hard by. But then, this wasn't much of an army anymore, either.

After the Esdaghs were well and truly gone, she and Dzundivvur had talked out their short, weary parley. The old, hollow-eyed Stormar had told Taeauna bluntly that he didn't mind fighting under a wizard, but there was no way by all the feathers of the glorking Falcon he was going to try to fight against a wizard, with no more aid than "an Aumrarr who's lost her wings and brave blades who have no more magic than I do."

Taeauna knew very well that amid all his crisscrossing baldrics, pouches and targes, the Stormar merchant was wearing enough enchanted things—old and mean as they might look—to defeat three or four hedge-wizards, given a little luck. Not to mention several score weary bowmen and swordswingers, with ease and magic to spare. Wherefore she very politely told him she understood, stood aside, and let him—and his motley, hardbitten band of hireswords with him—depart unhindered.

Leaving her with what was left of Horgul's seekers of liberty, and Malraun's own warriors. Fewer than a hundred men, all told; Wytherwyrm's ale-casks ought to be sufficient.

That wry thought took Taeauna into Wytherwyrm, to stand watching as Roreld waved his arms in commands that sent warriors hastening everywhere in search of foes hiding in the trees, the cabins, and the inn, with pairs or threes of Olondyn's bowmen right behind them, arrows ready.

She didn't expect them to find anything, and by the casual stances of the warcaptains standing around her watching the scouring of Wytherwyrm, they didn't either.

When she turned toward the inn, however, they did not walk with her—or get out of her way. Taeauna found herself in the center of a grim, silent ring.

So she lifted her eyebrows at them in silent question.

"Lady," Askurr said almost gently, furling Malraun's banner, "we must talk."

"Say on," she replied calmly, keeping her eyes on him rather than looking around at the faces now intent on hers. Olondyn, Zorzaerel... Roreld had joined them, too. All of the warcaptains, and the eldest and most trusted of Malraun's guardsmen, too.

Askurr hesitated, then blurted out, "We want some answers, all of us. What with all who've left, we... Well, tell us plain: what's become of Malraun?"

She waited, calmly. There would be more. There was.

"Why're you leading us to Malragard, and not on to Ironthorn? And, and—forgive me, Lady—why should we obey you? You say you follow the Master's orders, but we all heard him say it was to be Ironthorn after Darswords; those are his orders we know."

Taeauna nodded. "Well enough. Fair questions, all." She tossed her head, looked around at them, and raised her voice a trifle.

"Let me say first that I have been, ah, closer to Malraun than the rest of you... yes? In a manner I trust you'd prefer not to outdo me in."

Her dry declaration brought murmurs from them, but not— quite—any grins. They were troubled, all right.

"So I know Malraun's mind well. We've talked a lot together, and we speak frankly to each other. Not as fearful underling to reared master. Though I know very well what a Doom of Falconfar can do to a foe. Or someone who is disloyal."

She paused to look around her, trying to meet gazes, to show rhem she was calm, not angry. And certainly not afraid of them.

"I know his will and his intended road ahead better than any of you. And I remain loyal to him, and so am trying to follow his orders and desires. I heard him speak of taking Ironthorn next, too. However, that was before... Lorontar."

A murmur of soft curses and despairing remarks arose, and she vaited for it to die down before continuing.

"I know the first Lord Archwizard of Falconfar lived—and died—a long, long time ago. Yet all my life I have heard the same rumors you have: that he survives, somehow, and will rise again when the time is right."

She stared slowly around the ring of men, letting them see the rruth in her eyes.

At least, she hoped they'd see it as truth. They gazed back at her :n silent dismay, every one of them.

"Know that he has risen," she went on, "and has struck at • lalragard, seeking to seize the Master's magic. Lord Malraun rsed his magic to hurl himself from Darswords to his tower, to stop Lorontar the Terrible before the risen Lord Archwizard became too powerful for all Falconfar to defeat, standing together."

"And?" Olondyn barked.

"And my head took fire with that battle," she told them all grimly. "Malragard did not fare well, I believe. The third Doom of Falconfar—Narmarkoun—saw the battle as a chance to seize power from the both. I know not if my Malraun survives, or Narmarkoun... but I fear greatly that Lorontar, somehow, still exists."

"And you've... you've been walking down the trail with us this ray with all this in your head, telling us not a word of it?" Askurr's voice rose as high as a terrified young girl's. "Marching us into a battle of Dooms?"

Taeauna shrugged. "We are Falconfar's last hope. We and a man who was captive there, and may yet survive, too. Rod Everlar, the Dark Lord."

"So," Roreld rumbled slowly, "if we can rescue him, you mean..."

She nodded, wordlessly, and waited.

The storm was not long in coming. One moment they were all staring at her in silence, aghast, and the next they were bellowing and wagging their fingers in her face and waving their arms around. Rages born of terror, a roaring of frightened men.

She stood like a rock, silent and patient, and let the tumult break over her. When they all ran out of curses to shout, it was Olondyn who spat at her, "And you were marching us right into this, scheming wingbitch!"

Taeauna nodded. "I was."

"Rushing us to our slaughter!"

She shrugged and faced him squarely. "Perhaps. I know that we have a chance to destroy Lorontar, however slim. I know that if we slink away, scattering to our lairs and strongholds across Falconfar, that chance is lost—and that he'll come for us, one by one, and we'll be too few and too weak to cling to our lives. One by one he'll have us, like a night-cat pouncing on rats. Would you not want the chance to save your life, and all Falconfar? Rather than hurling it away, to live the rest of your life in fear, awaiting the doom you know will come?"

"I know nothing of the sort," Olondyn snapped. "A doom you proclaim, that I foresee not at all. Any wizard will need bodyguards, warriors to fight for him; why should he not choose Olondyn of the Bow?"

Taeauna shook her head. "You do not know Lorontar. I know him all too well. Dark Helms and lorn are his preferred troops— and hedge-wizards whose minds he burns out, so he can ride behind their eyes. Put all thought of paid service out of your head, Olondyn. Anyone who may have thought Lord Malraun cruel and imperious, consider this: what manner do you think a wizard will have when dealing with the world, when he prefers to be served by the dead?"

"Words," Zorzaerel growled. "All we have of this is your words, Lady. This Lorontar could be a kindly old sit-by-the-fire, for all we know."

"And if he is, and everything I say is a lie," Taeauna replied gently, "how much better a place will be Ironthorn, where three rival lordlings make war on each other every day, and have tested and ready armies, alert for any foe—when we are so few, now?"

"You," Askurr told her bluntly, "are crazed. I'll not listen to a word more from you—and I'll not follow you to certain doom."

There was a general rumble of agreement, and men started to move. "Bah," one warrior growled. "Give me swords any day, not spells I can do nothing to stop."

Taeauna stood still, turning only her head as she watched for a sword or two lashing out at her in anger.

None came. They drew back from her, not turning their backs until they were well away, then started tramping off in all directions, seeking their men.

"Hear me, all who are loyal to Falconfar," Taeauna called after them, keeping her voice flat and firm. "Rally to me, and walk with me to Malragard. Your swords can carve out our last chance."

None of the warcaptains even looked back. Except, after a few reluctant strides, old Roreld, who stopped and shook his head slowly at her.

Malraun's own men, the bodyguards who'd served him the longest—Eskeln, Gorongor, Tarlund, and Glorn—alone came to Taeauna, to stand with her, guarding her back and flanks. All of them stared at Roreld, who stared back and shook his head again.

"This... this is madness," he muttered. "Ironthorn's our death, I know, but a wizard's tower, now..." He shook his head again. "We could end up as Dark Helms, doomed to fight on after we die, until our very joints fall apart."

"Or we could save Falconfar, every lass and hearth of it we hold dear," Taeauna replied softly. "Instead of turning our backs and eaving that fray to others and dooming us all."

"So you say," Roreld said, sounding helpless. "It sounds so... unlikely." He waved empty hands, as if beckoning the Falcon to show him some sign. "Fighting wizards and dead things is not how I want to die."

Taeauna snorted. "We're warriors, Roreld. We could all be dead tomorrow. So don't wait for the morrow. Be magnificent today."

Roreld gave her a crooked smile. "You sound like a merchant trying to sell me something. For too high a price, and a thing I don't want, besides." He shook his head again—but turned and trudged toward her.

"I'm in," he said simply.

They embraced, chest to chest and thumping backs as warriors do, and in the heart of it he muttered, "Don't make me regret this. Tay, please don't make me regret this."

"I'll try not to. By the Falcon we all hold dear, I'll try," she murmured back, as they broke apart.

Taeauna looked around the ring of men. It was smaller now. Much smaller. Ten men, in fact, including Roreld's five. Veterans all, but still... ten men.

Ten men, against the greatest archwizard Falconfar had ever known.

She shrugged. Fewer graves to dig.

"If there's enough left of any of us to need burying," she murmured under her breath.

Gorongor, who had the keenest hearing, turned his head sharply. "Sorry, lady? What was that?"

"I said," Taeauna told him with a smile, "that I'm for yonder inn, for meat and drink before we start hurrying."

They nodded in agreement, and started across the clearing, ignoring the warriors everywhere who avoided their eyes, men hastening this way and that, making ready to start back to their own holds.

Horgul's army hadn't lasted long, after all.

So much for Liberation.

Taeauna smiled thinly. There'd be no liberation until all the Dooms were dead and gone, and Falconfar had no Lord Archwizard.

None but Rod Everlar.

"LORD ARCHWIZARD? I—I—some call me that," Rod stammered.

"Who're you?"

Sunken, shriveled eyeballs glimmered angrily back at him. "I'm a real wizard, 'Lord Archwizard.' The mage who built—and dug—this place, spell by spell. Back when the world was young and men kept their word—and all that sort of bog-twaddle. In the days when the Falcon flew our skies and was seen by all."

"The Falcon is real?"

"Of course it's real. Who d'ye think hears our curses, and heaps misfortunes on our heads for uttering them?"

"Lorontar," Rod said wryly. "Except when he's busy. Then Malraun and the other Dooms fill in."

The head dropped open its jaw—green-white flesh quivering— and made a hearty rattling sound that could only have been meant to be a laugh. It drifted closer to Rod.

"I like ye, man. Ye can't be a wizard. Ye lack the imperious rudeness, the spurning of humor. Yet... yet ye wakened all the Sleepers, just by blundering into their midst, and only one who can wield the most powerful magics can do that."

"The Sleepers?" Rod looked at the bobbing skeletons, who had now paused to stand in a ring around him, every skull turned toward him, the rusty remnants of their blades held so as to point to the ceiling. "These?"

The floating head sighed loudly. "Ye are an idiot, aren't ye?"

Rod managed a thin smile. "Guilty as charged."

"'Charged'?" The head backed away, eyes flaring up in rage or alarm. Then it seemed to relax, slumping down in midair. "Oh. Ye really don't know the first thing about magic, do ye?"

"No," Rod admitted quietly. "No, I don't."

DLARMARR WAS FAR from the largest and wealthiest port on the Hywond Shore, but it was one of the best.

In the oh-so-worldly opinion of Mori Ulaskro, tomekeeper of Lord Luthlarl's private library. Not that Mori had ever been farther from Dlarmarr than the village he'd been born in—Esker's Well, just the other side of Mralkwood Hill

Yet Mori was the tomekeeper, and so had read more about the Stormar ports than almost anyone he could think of, even if he'd never been to any of them but Dlarmarr. From the lord's highest tower, he could see Hywond itself, as a distant smudge down the coast, and what he thought was Telchassur beyond that, but at night the twinklings of their lights, the ship-fires lit atop their harbor-towers, were clear enough.