Arch Wizard

Chapter Fourteen

WIngs suddenly blotted out the moon, making Garfist swear in startlement and rear back from the window. A flapping moment later, there were two Aumrarr in the room.

Iskarra and Garfist could see that much, though in the wake of the flash that had split the sky, their eyesight was still blurry. Yet the two winged women were clear enough-as tall and slender black shapes, silhouetted against the cold brightness of the moon flooding the room.

"Who are ye?" Gar growled, settling into a menacing swordsman's crouch as he faced them, as if his hands bristled with warsteel rather than hanging empty.

"Dauntra and Juskra, of the Aumrarr," came the curt reply. "We brought you here, and we'll be taking you away again. Now."

"Why?" Iskarra snapped, from behind the table. "I'm finding I like Stormcrag Castle."

"The time is come," said the other Aumrarr, in a slightly kinder voice. "We need you."

"For what?" Garfist asked suspiciously. "Just how quickly is this going to get us killed, hey?"

"No time for that now," Juskra snarled, her sword starting to grate out of its scabbard-whereupon Isk held out the mindgem above the table, swinging her arm sharply to warn them she could at a whim swiftly bring it down, and shatter what she held.

"Oh," she told the two Aumrarr softly, as they stared at her with thinning lips, "I think there is."

Juskra's eyes blazed, and she strode forward almost panting in rising fury-only to stop abruptly, hissing, as Gar moved to bar her way to the table and drew back one arm, as if a solid punch could prevail against her sword and dagger.

"Dyune," he said firmly. "She left us. Just left us. What's befallen her?"

The two Aumrarr looked at each other, and then back at Gar and Isk.

"She has… perished," Dauntra said reluctantly. "In battle with a greatfangs. Along with our sisters Ambrelle and Lorlarra."

She shuddered as she fought back tears, then swallowed, sighed, and added, "Ambrelle died so we might live. She used the flame of life that burned within her to work a great magic."

"That blew the beast's brains apart from within," Juskra said grimly, "and slew it."

A little silence fell, until Garfist said into it, "Tell us more."

When neither of the Aumrarr spoke, he sighed and waved a hand at the mindgem Iskarra was holding over the table. "We know what we have, but where's the skull?"

"The skull?"

"Ortbaunt's skull," he growled disgustedly. "An' just for that, ye can tell me what ye're planning to use it for-or we, an' this oh-so-precious mindgem with us, stay right here."

The Aumrarr traded glances with each other again. Juskra was visibly itching to bury her sword in Garfist, but Dauntra gave her a glare, shaking her head.

"I know where it is," she told Garfist, slowly and reluctantly, "but we've not sought to recover it, yet. That-" She pointed at the mindgem. "-we came seeking first. Dyune was supposed to have hidden it here at Stormcrag and then departed without the two of you-or anyone else-ever seeing her."

"Ever kings scheme, yet the Falcon rends all bright plots awry," Garfist quoted an old ballad archly. "Even, it seems, the clever plans of Aumrarr."

"Enough of this," Juskra snapped, glaring at Iskarra. "Give us the gem, or I'll start cutting large slices off your man, here!"

Garfist grabbed for her sword then, barehanded. She backed hastily away and brought its point up to menace his face and throat.

He gave her an unpleasant grin. "Threaten someone it'll work on. For us, save yer breath. Ye need us, not just yon stone and the skull. Hey?"

Dauntra sighed, shoulders sagging. "Yes."

Garfist gave Juskra a sardonic look, arching one eyebrow. She grimaced in disgust and lowered her blade.

"That's better," he growled. "Now, the two of ye, heed: Isk and I may well be quite willing to aid ye. If ye speak truth, and keep nothing back from us. Ye Aumrarr love to keep secrets, but there's none but us to say ye didn't, hey? If you speak truth, the Falcon might even smile on ye, for once! So speak. We know ye need us, so what we're to do is something no Aumrarr can succeed at. We know 'tis dangerous and urgent, or ye wouldn't be here in the dead of night drawing steel on us. So spill all, lasses! What d'ye need us for?"

"If we tell you," Dauntra said quietly, "the mere knowing leaves you standing in danger."

"Sister, no!" Juskra snapped. "We dare not-"

"You daren't not tell us," Iskarra snapped out, her voice louder than the scarred Aumrarr, and ringing with the iron of command, "or you lose your chance. Either we refuse, you slay us, and you go out into the night with no gem and the need to hunt down more humans who'll aid you-or you tell us all, and we can begin whatever task you need us for. I will not aid and serve captors who hurl us hither and yon like old cloaks and tell us nothing, but I could very well fight alongside someone who trusted me, and treated me as worthy to know what is going on."

Her words rang out into a sudden stillness, as the two Aumrarr turned to lock eyes with each other.

A swift and silent war was fought in a few unfolding moments, through their sharp eyes, and then Juskra tossed her head, sighed loudly, and announced, "Very well. The truth. We, yes, need humans, because the warning-spells on Lyraunt Castle are keyed to rouse the place if any Aumrarr comes within their reach."

"Malraun's spells," Garfist rumbled. Both Aumrarr nodded, so he asked, "And ye need to get into Lyraunt Castle why?"

"To put the skull in… a particular place, therein," Dauntra replied, "and the gem in another specific spot."

Letting the weariness of worn-thin patience sound clearly in his voice, Gar asked flatly, "Why?"

"The Doom you named has created gates-magical ways to and from far places, traversed in a step; waerways, some call them-in the castle," Juskra replied. "Two of them."

"We know what gates are," Isk said softly. "You seek to close them."

Dauntra nodded. "The spells on the skull will disrupt the enchantments of the larger gate, yes. The second, smaller one we believe to be the Doom's secret; his 'back door' if you will. If we can place the mindgem in it, and he later tries to use that way into the Castle, quite likely to find out and fix what happened to his other gate, the powers of the gem will affect him."

Garfist glared at her ere asking patiently, "And do what?"

"Scramble his mind to drooling idiocy, if the luck of the Falcon is with us," Juskra muttered.

"And if it isn't?"

"Enrage him into setting aside his schemes for as long as it takes to come after us, and destroy us," Dauntra said quietly.

Iskarra frowned. "So the gem won't close the gate?"

"No." Juskra grounded the point of her sword on the floor, leaned on its quillons, and sighed, "Yon stone will just sit there in it, waiting for Malraun to get too close."

Garfist nodded. "So, now, where are these gates?"

She fixed him with a hard, direct stare. "Telling you where the larger one lies is a waste of breath if you haven't been inside Lyraunt Castle, until we're flying above it and I can point the right roof out to you. The second one is in a bedchamber at the top of Lyraunt's tallest tower. The bed all but fills that room, and the gate awaits anyone squeezing under the bed, right at the back, by its headboard."

Acquiring the ghost of a smile, the sword-scarred Aumrarr added, "You're too fat to use that waerway, unless you've brawn enough to heave the whole thing up on your back."

"You welcome would-be allies so charmingly," Isk told her sharply.

The reply was a shrug, but Dauntra said, "Juskra, please. Garfist, Iskarra; we need you to be the ones who place the skull and the gem for us. Now."

"Why now?" Garfist asked, suspicion sharpening his voice from its usual growl.

"Because," Juskra told him grimly, "the armies of monsters and mercenaries Malraun has sent flooding across all Falconfar this side of Galath will reach Ironthorn soon enough. Then it'll be too late, and you can die smug and secure, knowing you could have saved the world. But chose not to."

Taeauna smiled up at her Master, there on the hilltop. Looming above her, the gloating Doom threw back his head to laugh at the stars, and compelled his wards-the spells that would turn aside any arrow, hurled weapon, or hard-swung blade the more ambitiously treacherous of his warriors might decide to send his way-to glow more brightly, outlining him in eerie flames that burned nothing and gave off no heat.

He blazed coldly on that blood-drenched hilltop, awakening mutters of awe and wary regard among his warriors. Behold Malraun the Matchless, triumphant in victory. The overconfident fool.

Behind Taeauna's smiling face, too far down in the dark depths of her mind for Malraun's light hold over her to sense, Lorontar chuckled in glee.

Malraun's decision to let his playpretty, this wingless Aumrarr, lead the army was brilliant, of course.

And it was a notion he, Lorontar, had planted in Malraun's head, working with slow, deft patience through Malraun's mindlink with Taeauna. The Matchless One had swallowed the idea as his own without any suspicion… without even beginning to suspect Lorontar's influence.

So, now, if Malraun did depart, with Taeauna in charge, Lorontar would cloak himself even more deeply, and happily exert a little more mind-control over the Aumrarr.

Making her lead the Army of Liberation in an attack on Galath.

That would draw preening little Malraun into a frantic effort to quell the fighting. He would want to salvage some part of this army, after all, and seek to conquer Galath not on the battlefield, but by storming and coercing the mind of its new king. Thus gaining dominion over a Galath as undamaged as possible, not a kingdom ravaged by war or plunged into fresh and ongoing civil strife as this or that ambitious arduke or baron sought the throne.

Yet thanks to Lorontar's deft reminders, worked in one mind here and another there, King Melander Brorsavar of Galath was now protected by the diadem given by the meddling Aumrarr to a long-ago predecessor, to keep the mind of he who sat the Throne of Galath shielded from hostile magics.

Malraun might get an unwelcome surprise or two. If he was foolish enough to bring Taeauna along with him as he sought to master Brorsavar, one of those surprises might be a long, cold length of warsteel plunged up his backside a long and bloody way inside him.

Then he could put his Matchless mastery of magic to work trying to save his lifeblood, before it all ran out of him. While a certain not-dead-enough Archwizard of Falconfar tried to put his magic to the task of teaching Taeauna how to cast a spell that would turn her Master's blood to fire in his very veins, and cook him alive from within.

Now, that would be fun.

Above her, still brightly aglow, Malraun looked all about over the night-shrouded carnage of Darswords, eyes boyish-bright with excitement at all the bloodshed, exulting in his victory.

Abruptly his fingers tightened on Taeauna's head, digging in with cruel force to drag her upright. She rose willingly, not to escape the pain but out of ardent desire to please and obey him.

Showing all his teeth in his most hungry smile, Malraun swept the wingless Aumrarr into a tight embrace and bit her throat lightly. "Do off your armor," he murmured, releasing her. "Quickly."

She unbuckled, wriggled, and shrugged her way clear of warharness in deft, supple haste, but it was still heaped all about her knees when he growled, freed himself, and started to make love to her, brutally, there on the moonlit hilltop in the midst of all the blood-drenched dead.

Embracing him, yielding and urging him on wordlessly with her caresses, Taeauna smiled. She was beneath him, and his ardent kisses were below her chin, so he never saw the smile on her face.

It was the deep, triumphant smile of Lorontar.

Ahead of Rod Everlar there was a brief, almost soundless commotion, a straining and whispering of cloth and boots, and then something that might have been a long, trailing groan under firmly-clamped, muffling hands. Then there came a sort of thud, and a louder scrape of a boot heel being dragged across stone.

One of Syregorn's knights had killed another Lyrose guard, and they were another step closer to setting foot in Lyraunt Castle.

Its walls loomed over them, almost unseen here in the deep darkness beneath these trees, but the moonlight was almost frighteningly bright back behind them, on the lawn that separated Lord Lyrose's fishpond from the scullery port. A side door too small and simple to be called a gate, the port was set deep into the wall. It was tall but narrow, was sheathed entirely in thrice-banded oiled iron, and was about two feet thick, to boot.

Rod doubted Syregorn's men had been stretching tales to impress him; now that they were settled into stone-faced readiness to slay, he doubted this lot would seek to impress their own grandmothers. In any way, and for any reason. They were like foxes padding through the night. Silent and patient, until they were close enough to pounce.

Ahead of them, there was a brief flicker of lantern-light as the scullery port swung open again-and the hand on Rod's shoulder forced him down onto his knees. He froze there, seeing the knights ahead of him doing the same, as a muttering of low voices rose briefly by the port ere it swung shut once more.

Oblivious to the stealthy doom fast approaching them, Lord Lyrose's guards seemed to be busily engaged, this night, in their usual habits of visiting some of the maids to trade coins for their embraces and for leftovers from Castle feasts. The scullery port had swung open and shut seven times now, just since the Hammerhand band had rounded the fishpond.

Though it was now too dark for Rod to see Syregorn, he knew the warcaptain was frowning like a grim mourner at a funeral. An entire Lyraunt Castle guard patrol was missing.

Usually, according to Thalden's latest whisper nigh Rod's ear, there were guards stationed outside the scullery port, to prevent this nightly commerce becoming a vulnerability to any skulking warbands from Hammerhold and Imtowers. Yet not a guard had they found, aside from those waiting their turn to shuffle briefly in through the scullery port.

"Come on, Larl," someone growled resignedly, startlingly close at hand. "Rut with her faster. I'm getting cold."

A gentle breeze arose then, covering the faint sounds the Hammerhand knight in front of Rod made as he rose to clamp a firm hand over that Lyrose guard's mouth.

Then the quickening wind shifted some branches, making them dance and let in moonlight just long enough to let Rod see the knight's dagger slice across the back of one of the struggling guard's hands.

The knight held the man tight, holding the knife high rather than trying to stab him again.

When another moment of moonlight let the hard-swallowing Lord Archwizard see the struggling pair again, long seconds later, the guard was sagging and the knight was trudging a few steps across the lawn under the man's dying weight, to let him down out of the way.

That knife was poisoned. It had to be.

Rod swallowed again, finding his throat a more rough and dry place than ever. Poison cared nothing for titles or high station.

Certainly not for a title like "Lord Archwizard of Falconfar."

"We'll do it," Isk told the Aumrarr quietly. "But then, you knew that."

"We could not be sure. We compel no one against their will," Dauntra replied with dignity.

Then she froze, as Garfist's loud snort turned into barks of derisive laughter. As that harsh laughter rose to roll about the moonlit room, Juskra joined in, the same disbelief in her bitter mirth. A moment later, Isk chuckled.

After a long, reddening time, Dauntra chuckled, too.

The scullery port closed again. The wind had died, and the night was very quiet.

"Now what?" Thalden whispered, his voice the faintest of ghostlike murmurs. "There are none of Lyrose left alive out here, but surely they'll send a patrol around the outside walls some time."

Syregorn nodded, and reached out to tap the nearest knight in a certain manner Rod couldn't see. The signal was passed along, and in a few almost silent moments, the band that had come from Hammerhold were crouching on hands and knees in a ring, faces almost touching. Someone's breath was foul with fish.

"I dislike the standing guards who aren't here, and should be," someone whose voice sounded rough and old muttered. "This feels like a trap to me."

"I am just as uneasy over that," Syregorn replied, "yet suspicious or not, it's let us get very close to Lyraunt before we had to do much killing."

"You dislike killing? You surprise me," a deeper voice muttered.

Syregorn sighed. "Slaying bothers me not, but every killing is a chance you'll be discovered, and the alarum raised. Hence the…"

"Poison," Thalden murmured. As Syregorn's furious hiss arose, he added, "The wizard knows, Gorn. While he was watching us use it, and realizing what he was seeing, I was watching his face."

"Ah yes, the wizard," the deep voice muttered again. "So here we are with the great Lord Archwizard, and do we blast the castle apart? No. We go creeping in like thieves, in the mud and thorns, and him with us!"

"Use magic, when there might be a Doom inside those walls? You are a dolt," the old voice hissed. Then it came to Rod's ears a trifle louder, as its owner turned to Syregorn. "What'd you do to the outlander to turn him into Lord Wizard Babbling-Tongue, anyway?"

"Followed orders," Syregorn snapped. "Now silence. Or he'll start with the questions again, and get us all killed! Quick, now!

To the port-to the walls on either side of it. Tarth and Reld standing, steel ready; everyone else farther along and lying flat. When yon port opens, I want us there and ready. Let the man get out before you fell him, so those within hear and see nothing amiss. Then we slip in, as the latest lusty guards. If a maid screams, mind, we'll probably all die."

The ring melted away into moving shadows, so quietly that Rod blinked in disbelief. He stayed where he was until the familiar firm hand tightened and tugged on his shoulder in an unmistakable "come with me" signal.

Obediently he went, crouching low and making so little noise that the owner of the hand sighed in disgust only twice on their way to the wall of Lyraunt Castle.

I thought this castle had a moat, Rod thought to himself as he went to his knees and then down to rest on his chest and stomach in short-scythed grass, a moment before Thalden whispered, "Malraun's ward-spells did one good thing, anyway: let the Lyroses fill in that stinking moat." The whisper changed, sounding amused. "They regretted it soon after, when they had to start digging graves, not just rolling their dead off the walls and into the water."

Then the scullery port opened with a brief flare of light, a man was butchered in swift and efficient silence in front of Rod's eyes, and the night was full of swift-moving Hammerhand shadows.

The firm hand returned, and a moment later Rod Everlar was bruising his elbows on hard stone as he was thrust forward. The terrified eyes of maids feeling poison burn inside them stared at him helplessly over the brutally-tight hands that covered their mouths and noses.

Then he was past them, turning to try to watch but seeing only the night outside vanishing behind the closing scullery port ere he was wrenched around to face forward and shoved into a dark chamber.

Where the Lord Archwizard came to a stumbling halt, well and truly inside Lyraunt Castle.

Nearby in the darkness, someone laughed. Coldly and menacingly, of course.