Falconfar 03-Falconfar (24 page)

"Who by the randy, hargrauling Falcon are you?"

The woman now bending lithely forward to smile at him—and afford him a generous view down the front of her soft leather bodice—purred, "I am the Lady Talyss Tesmer, of Ironthorn. And I like what I see. Tell me, lord—for you can be nothing less; no man so splendid could be—just what, by the randy, hargrauling Falcon, is your name?"

Annusk Dunshar gaped at her, sharp-pointed side-whiskers robbing, jaw working as he struggled for the right words... or any words.

She licked her lips, gazing at him in open desire, and the klarl caught sight of the man standing behind her, also clad in tight, well- worn leathers and sporting a sword and daggers, and stiffened, grabbing for the hilt of his blade.

Slender fingers forestalled him.

"Gently, my lord, gently," the woman murmured in soothing reproof, almost in his lap now. "No danger awaits you here. He who stands behind me is my sworn and loyal man, not some murderous thrust-knife or other."

That man promptly nodded, though Dunshar saw that the man's gaze kept carefully steady, looking past him at something on the far wall of his office.

"I—" Dunshar flushed, wallowing in confusion.

Stuttering for a moment, he lowered his head like a bull, put all thinking behind him, and snapped, "I am a klarl of Galath, Lady Talyss. Annusk Dunshar is my name, and I rule over the rebuilding of Galathgard, here around you, and this great castle once it stands proud once more, until the day the King rides in to once more sit the Throne of Galath. Which makes me the seneschal of this most royal of castles, wherefore I ask again: who are you? Am I to understand you rule this Ironthorn? Or is there a Lord Tesmer?"

"There is, but he lies near death, too old and feeble to rule beyond the door of his own bedchamber—if that. You've not even heard of Ironthorn?"

Dunshar waved a hasty hand. "No, no, 'tis west of Galath, somewhere beyond Tauren, is it not?"

"It is, and I have come all that way to see you," she breathed, lifting a knee onto the edge of his chair and thrusting herselr forward until her breasts grazed his chest...

Dunshar shook himself, like a dog awakening, and managed to ask thickly, "Why?"

"Because I seek a real man, a man of power and refinement, a great man in the greatest realm Falconfar has ever known, not one of the slackjawed, stoneheaded hay-farmers of Ironthorn. A man such as you."

Dunshar blinked. "But—but, lady, this is ridic—harrumph, highly un—ah, incred—uh, irregul—"

"Unusual, I quite grant," the Lady Tesmer murmured, her lips almost brushing his, her breath a warm zephyr carrying a hint of cinammon. "And I am sure that our rough, backcountry Ironthar ways seem clumsy to you, perhaps even striking you as akin to the blandishments of lowly coin-kiss lasses—not that you will have experienced any such personally, my lord klarl, of course, but men who rule hear much, and know much, and anticipate even more.''

"Uh, indeed they do," Dunshar said brightly, daring to adopt something that just might be interpreted as a tease. He went so far as to wink.

A moment later, the lips so close to his were locked upon his mouth, and an eager, ardent tongue was thrusting in his mouth, leaving him—

Choking and sputtering, clawing at the air for aid that did not come and dignity that was quite lost.

Fingers that thrilled with their gentle touch were tracing his neck and up behind his ear, and toying with the curled hairs of his chest.

"Lord Dunshar, would you prefer that I beg you? For I will, and gladly; it has been long indeed since 1 have known the touch of a man, and—"

By some miracle or other, probably involving the Falcon, Annusk Dunshar heaved himself up out of his chair somehow, spilling the woman—gods, she was taller than he was, though now she was down on her knees gazing up at him with glazed eyes and parted lips—off of him. He reeled to his feet, clutching at his sword for fear the woman's unmoving manservant would suddenly lunge forward to thrust steel right through him.

"No, this can't be happening!" he snarled. "This is some sort of trick! Women just don't—"

He stared down. She was kissing his dusty boots, grinding herself along the stone floor like a serpent as she licked at them. "Ah, but I do," she murmured. "Yet I am well aware that men—great men, noble lords—have their dignity and their own entanglements. And are guided by manners prevailing here in Galath that I am woefully uninformed about."

Staring up at him with great dark eyes, she deliberately bent her head again and planted a wet, ardent kiss on the now-gleaming toe of his right boot. "I have, I fear, offended. Lord Dunshar, please believe me when I say it is not my intent to discomfit you—only to have you if you'll have me."

"I... I am flattered, lady," the klarl said stiffly, uncomfortably aware that anyone could walk by the open door of the office and peer in—to say nothing of the fact that nothing at all would stop anyone from overhearing all of this.

"Please, arise." He extended his hand. "I would like to meet with you elsewhere, after my work here is done for the day, when we can speak more freely. In the meantime, let me say that although your, ah,... warmth... has more than astonished me, it is not unwelcome, and I am not displeased. May I, ah, offer you some nightwine?"

Lady Tesmer's eyes flashed delight. "I'd be delighted!"

Dunshar retrieved his flask, started to hold it out, then hesitated, looking helplessly around his cluttered office for a goblet he hadn't spit into or used as a censer.

The Lady Tesmer came to his rescue. "Ah! No fears, my lord klarl! My man carries two slake-horns for the trail, if you mind not small quaffs!" She turned to her impassive manservant, and almost immediately whirled back, proffering two tiny cones cut from the tips of beast-horns.

Dunshar admired them with a smile. Better and better; they were small enough that he'd not diminish his precious nightwine nearly as much as he'd feared he might.

He poured with delicate skill, and not the slightest hesitation.

He'd never drunk nightwine while staring into the eyes of a woman who was staring back at him in obvious longing—by the Falcon, he'd never had so beautiful a woman staring at him with longing at all. Somehow the wine tasted brighter, more sparkling, and more warming than ever before. More golden...

"Wonderful," he breathed as they stood facing each other, lips almost touching.

"The nightwine is, too," she murmured back, eyes devouring his.

Klarl Annusk Dunshar smiled at her jest, finding himself amused, proud, and aroused all at the same time—and somehow warm and comforted and safe, too...

He was vaguely aware of being in his chair again, his face nestled against those warm, soft breasts, and the shapely mouth not far above them murmuring, "The braethear has full hold of him."

However, he was far beyond wondering what "braethear" might be, or why the manservant muttered back, "Good. Now, as long as none of our bolder kin come trailing along after that locket..."

"If they do, the trap is more than ready," the Lady Tesmer replied smugly. "Now help me with Lord Dunshar, here. Such a man of Galath."

Her laughter then was like the merry, mocking tinkling of many bells, at once high and carefree, and at the same time so deafening that Annusk Dunshar slid down and away from it into deepening shadows, wondering why every last man in Galathgard didn't come running to see what was making all the noise, and then turn to take those wonderful breasts for themselves...

HE WAS...

He was here. Wherever "here" was.

Chin-down on cold stone, surrounded by fresh wreckage, the air full of heavy, clinging dust.

Weird glows flickered and pulsed, here and there through the cloak of dust, silent and tireless radiances that weren't flames... and so, must be magic.

Magic. That was it!

Rod Everlar nodded feebly, the floor beneath him cold, and hard.

An enchanted thing—a lurstar, he remembered—had fallen to the floor of this room and exploded, right in front of him. He'd been... the memories of the wizard Rambaerakh had been flooding through him—

Memories not his own flared in his mind again; a bearded man shouting, clawing at the air in frantic patterns that trailed fiery lines—but too late, as the man choked and spasmed and went purple and fell away behind his floating tangle of fire...

A castle of dark stone looming tall and dark on a mountaintop, green fires bursting forth from the windows, hurling folk within to their deaths, then raging higher until the walls cracked and split and the fortress started to fall...

A woman with love in her eyes, and grief, rushing toward him in a darkened chamber, pleading...

Rod shook his head violently, slapped himself, and gasped in relief. He'd managed to thrust aside the dead wizard's memories somehow, and was himself again, lying in this shattered chamber in the cellars of Malragard.

"Light," he mumbled. "Must have light. Can't... see."

As if that had been a command, magical lights silently flared all around him.

Rod glared at them and raised himself onto his elbows. He couldn't quite believe that he'd been so close to a blast that scoured the walls bare and cracked the ceiling, and been untouched.

Or was he? He couldn't feel his legs or his left arm, although he heaved himself up off the stone readily enough.

He sat up, and put a tentative hand up to his face.

There was his cheek, and his nose... Everything felt very much as it always had. He was alone—he felt alone, though the memories of too many dead men to count were all in his head, just waiting for a chance to get out—and he felt whole, too. Unhurt.

He stood up, a little unsteadily, and peered through the drifting dust.

Most of the stone shelves were gone, blasted away in great jagged shards where enchanted things had exploded; it looked like a greatfangs had somehow managed to get just its head into the room, and bite the edges of the shelves. The glows were coming from shattered things of magic, or were playing back and forth between wands or lurstars that had fallen close to each other.

Rod shook his head. How had he survived? It just wasn't—no. he couldn't believe it. His face had been somewhere about there. and the lurstar just over there...

He shook his head in disbelief. Now, if the thing had just shattered like glass, maybe, but when it had obviously exploded with sufficient fury to vaporize itself and crater the stone floor beneath, and magic items all over the room had blown apart, too, turning Malraun's arsenal into all these shards and twisted chaos and dying magic and perhaps, just perhaps one or two things he might be able to salvage...

Well, perhaps there was something to this Lord Archwizard business, after all...

Salvage, that had been a good idea. Not that he knew the slightest thing about magic, or even how to turn on some of these items, but he could always trade—

Rod stopped then, and blinked. New memories were crowding into his mind as he stared along the benches, and he realized that he did know something about magic, after all.

Still not spells. Very probably, if he tried to cast one—even if he somehow found a profusely illustrated Simple Spells For Kids book, or some such, and everything else he needed for a spell, too—stone-cold nothing would happen.

He wasn't eager to try, either. Instead of "nothing," he might very well manage something. Like blowing off his own hand, or a bystander's head, or the towers off the nearest castle.

Yet as he looked at what was left of Malraun's things of magic, strewn along the benches—most of them blackened, twisted, shattered, or even melted and run down off the fragmented stone bench in long, tarry streams that had hardened again, like cooling plastic—he could now put names to things. As in: that hadn't just been some sort of magical staff, it was what was left of a Falconstrike.

And that wand, before its dangerous end had turned into a line of charcoal, had been a Taether's Talons, a weapon that conjured up raking claws out of thin air to rend one's foes.

These things, too, that looked like long spindles, with a handgrip centred between two tapering ends rather than just one like a wand; these had been mysteries to him before, but he knew what they were now. Very likely because Rambaerakh had known. They were called undluths, and they spewed magic from both points, in long, flowing lines that trailed behind a moving undluth-wielder, and could be used to lash foes or counter their spells, hurled between the wielder and a foe like a dancing, undulating barrier. Undluth-strands could parry enemy magic where nothing else could, luring and clutching at it where a sword or net or shield would be utterly useless against it.