Falconfar 03-Falconfar (20 page)

"Malragard's just over this ridge," Gorongor called, from ahead. "Or what's left of it is."

They all scrambled to join him. Among them, Taeauna was quick to hiss, "Keep low. I don't want us flashing steel as we gawk along the ridge-top!"

They went face-down to the ground amid tangled bushes, to peer over the crest of the ridge at the next hill over—the one tha: had a riven, roofless stronghold atop it, whose tower had topplec.

"Look!" Glorn snapped, throwing out an arm that still bore stained bandages from the taking of Darswords. "Look there!"

On that far hill, approaching ruined Malragard ahead of them, was a band of armed men in motley array. In strength, about twice their own. Counting them was hard, because some of them were already half-hidden amid the outermost walls and rubble of Malraun's tower.

"Thieves," Gorongor growled, darkly.

"Mage-slayers," Eskeln suggested.

"Men we must stop," Roreld summarized.

Even as Tarlund was asking, "Say—that one, there! Isn't that Tresker, of Darswords?" Taeauna was heaving herself upright.

Turning to face them, she announced crisply, "Too late to keep hidden! We must get down there, ready to fight, just as fast as our legs can take us!"

Beside her, struggling to his feet, Glorn groaned.

There were some chuckles. Everyone was already on the move, over the ridge and loping down its other slope.

THIS WAS A nightmare. A nightmare that went on and on, and that he couldn't wake from or change in the slightest. He was trapped, his head a great cage that everyone else was stuffing their lives into... until he gagged. Retching helplessly as the surging, overwhelming flood went on.

Rod didn't have time to enjoy the good memories or savor anything—heck, he didn't have time to understand what he was seeing, as the torrent of lives went on and on.

The floating head of Rambaerakh was holding him up now. butting against his back and shoulders, thrusting him upright as he sagged and shivered, babbling encouragement and threats and anything else it took to keep him reaching out with trembling hands for the next bobbing skull.

Frightened faces, shrieking as they died; castles burning, flames flaring hungrily; bared flesh by candlelight... the flood of memories raged on, crashing through him no matter how much he whimpered or fought to scream them begone—all that seemed to come out of his trembling mouth was sobs and a soft, wordless keening—as the bobbing bones fell into dust and the swords rang and crashed on the stones at his feet.

There were only a few skeletons left now, or so it seemed, the line a mere shadow of what it had been. Rod could barely tell—no matter how much he shook his head, it was getting harder and harder to banish the memories jostling behind his eyes. He tried to peer past them, tried to—to... what was he trying to do, again?

"Bear up, Everlar," the floating head said into his ear. "Almost done. Ye're feeling maze-minded, but it won't last. Minds bury and forget, so they can go on. Ye will go on."

"Really?" Rod mumbled, reaching forth with a wavering hand for the next skeleton—and wincing, despite himself, as it advanced. " Wonderful."

"Sarcasm ill becomes ye," Rambaerakh told him tartly.

"Oh? Going barking insane won't suit me too well, either." Rod started to say more, but it trailed away in less than a breath into helpless babbling, all control over his tongue lost under the vivid onslaught of another set of memories, another parade of loving faces and dying ones, mourning and lust and surging hatred, grand and sordid moments, triumphs and disasters...

This Helm had killed his own dog in a drunken rage, and regretted it for the rest of his life. Now Rod was going to regret it too. He found himself plunged into the man's, raw-edged tide of sorrow, and swept away from the twinkling lights of all he knew and loved—that is, all that this Helm had known and loved, in life—into a deepening night and a rising gale. The seas rose and his gorge with them, and Rod vomited and wallowed and reeled helplessly in the false remembrance of a storm twenty summers past, and an early blizzard that had come in its wake...

Another skeleton was approaching, bobbing almost jauntily to loom out of the swirling snows...

"I did not dream all of this up," Rod told himself grimly. "I only wanted to tell stories that would keep pages turning and readers smiling."

Obligingly, the skeleton grinned into his face, a rictus of yellowing teeth it always presented to the world... until this instant, as it sighed away into trailing dust before Rod's eyes, leaving the Lord Archwizard blinking at nothing but the dark room—and seeing a fresh tide of memories not his own.

When it was done, he was crying again, the streaming tears blinding him as he stared and peered, hand held out... but there was no skeleton to touch.

Nothing but the severed head of the wizard Rambaerakh. floating slowly around to face him.

"Death," it whispered. "Death at last."

"GREATFANGS!" GLORN SHOUTED hoarsely, dropping from a run to a face-down skid in the grass.

"Dung fire!" Esklen cursed, seeing five of the huge beasts descending from the sky to the distant ruin they were sprinting toward. "Down! Down, or we're dead men!"

"Taeauna," Roreld growled, from where he was sliding to a halt hard by her heels, "what now? Surely we should turn back—"

"Go, then," was her cold reply. "I'm going on. They're only overgrown lizards with wings—just as we Aumrarr are only women with wings... as I've heard a man of my company tell all warriors who'll listen, more than once."

Roreld groaned. "I might have known..."

"That I was listening? Yes, you should have. Let us crawl, men, until yonder wyrms fly off again. They will—you'll see!"

"I don't doubt it," Gorongor growled, from nearby. "But who'll they be carrying in their claws when they do, hey?"

" You listen to too many minstrels' tales," Taeauna told him severely. "Drink less, sleep earlier. Maybe even alone, from time to time."

He gave her a mournful look. "And what price my life then, hey?"

RAMBAERAKH'S ROTTING, SCAR-CROSSED face was wearing the same grim expression as always, the shrunken and shriveled eyeballs aglow with terrible life.

"My turn at last, Everlar," the severed head told him quietly, eyes flashing eagerly. "I wanted to stay long enough to see all the Dooms—and Lorontar, too—go down, to outlast them all. Now, though, for the first time in too many seasons to remember, I just want it all to end. Have all I know, wizard with no magic. Have it all—and rescue Falconfar for me. Rescue Falconfar for us all."

And with that fierce whisper still ringing around the room, it sprang forward, right at Rod's face.

He shouted, or thought he did, as he felt the wizard's skull shatter against his nose and forehead. Then a deluge of memories choked him in a flood of dancing white fire, that roiled and echoed thunderously inside him, sending him staggering and flailing about blindly...

The severed head had disintegrated like all the Helms, and Rod neard himself calling Rambaerakh's name again and again.

There was no reply. Not that it mattered... not that anything in the dim room around him mattered, anymore.

In Rod's head, real terror and wonder were unfolding, as he saw vhat Rambaerakh had seen and learned what Rambaerakh had earned—sometimes triumphantly, sometimes disastrously—about wielding magic. Across seventy summers he was watching spells go wrong or sizzle forth, their magic maiming or transforming Rambaerakh's foes and rivals. He was Rambaerakh, and he could—

No. He was Rod Everlar.

Now he knew a lot about magic, but there was a vast difference ^etween knowing and doing. Unless, of course, he could Shape what Rambaerakh had once cast...

Rod barely felt the crash as he slammed into one of the shelves, already off-balance and falling. It caught him under the ribs, then under his armpit... he scraped his nose on the shelf-edge as he went down, still wandering in surges of recalled magic, of memories not his own...

Rod must have hit the floor, but didn't feel it at all. He dimly heard a loud metallic clanging that must have been one of those horned helms striking the floor nearby... and beheld, with calm disinterest, one of the lurstars tumbling in velvety silence toward the stone floor.

The white fire behind his eyes was joined by a flare of crimson flames in front of him—and in the leaping teeth of that sudden blinding roar all Falconfar went away.

THERE WAS A sudden, soundless thrill in the air, a prickling of hairs on arms and necks. Before the men of Darswords could do more than stiffen warily and peer about for some mighty magic awakening, all that was left of Malragard rocked beneath their boots.

The greatfangs shrieked and hurled themselves untidily into the air in a flapping frenzy of haste, screaming in shuddering convulsions of agony that almost tumbled them from the sky.

Narmarkoun spared their squalling, dwindling forms not even a glance. His head had snapped around to peer in another direction, and down. The men around him could see that he was staring at the flagstones underfoot as if he could see right through them— and was frowning and looking delighted at the same time.

There was a chance Malraun had survived, or had been able to hurl himself into the body of someone else, who had just worked a spell in the cellars of Malragard. There was a better chance that Malraun had taken apprentices, or captured and held mages, unbeknownst to his rival Dooms, and they had just unleashed magic... or that captives or looters incapable of wielding magic at all had blundered into a magical trap, or triggered some guardian spell or other.

He'd been expecting this. Someone was bound to start trying to hurl Malraun's magic before Narmarkoun could secure this ruin for himself. It could be a formidable foe, or an utter fool stumbling into a trap or ambush Malraun had prepared—or anything in between.

Which was why these twenty-one men of Darswords around him were going to be so useful. It might cost a few lives to find and deal with the cause of the magic. By the Falcon, it might cost a few lives just to get down through riven Malragard to get anywhere near the cause of this magic.

"Come," he ordered curtly, pointing with the staff at where a ruined wall turned a corner, away from them all. "That way. You—Merek—to the fore, and lead us all. You'll find a stair on the other side of yon wall, not far."

Slowly, staring at him doubtfully, the men of Darswords moved toward the wall.

Narmarkoun smilingly sloped his staff down and made it spew forth fire, erupting from the flagstones just behind the boots of the slowest Darsworder. The man staggered forward with a startled shout, echoed by the next slowest man a moment later, as another flagstone erupted in shards and flame.

"Move," the wizard ordered all the warriors, as they stared at him. "Haste is required."

And he gave them a pleasant smile.

"We wouldn't want to miss any treasure now, would we? Or tarry so much that something unfortunate befalls us? Hmm?"

"NO ONE LURKING about?" Zorzaerel growled, looking not at his master-of-scouts, but almost longingly down at the racing creek.

The veteran scout, his face sour, shook his head in silent reply. Zorzaerel grunted pleased acknowledgement, nodded dismissal to the scout—who returned across the water to fill his own belt- flasks—and sat down heavily on the bank of the stream.

By the time Askurr arrived beside him, he was already dipping his helm into the flow.

Askurr drank thankfully. Even in the Raurklor shade, trudging along a trail in full armor is wearying work.

"So, now," he said with a gasp, once he'd slaked himself, water streaming from his stubbled chin, "whither next? Horgul's dream died with him, and I've no stomach for hacking my way clear through the heart of Tauren without Malraun standing at my side to blast down every self-proclaimed duke who has the hairies to stand up to us!"

"Well, now, there," Zorzaerel rumbled, raising a finger to wag it. "I've been thinking..." Askurr waited.

"Aye?" was all he said by way of prompting, when it became clear Zorzaerel really was waiting for leave to say more. "I've no stomach for being led to my slaughter by Malraun's bed-lass no matter how fair on the eyes she may be," the youngest of warcaptains growled, "but if I'm free to skulk and watch and hide—if there're to be wizards hurling lightnings and the Falcon alone knows what else at other wizards, hiding is what we'll be doing most of, hey?—I'm thinking there just may be some spoils, after 'tis all done, worth having."