Arch Wizard

Chapter Seventeen

Iskarra and garfist stared at the six Lyrose knights advancing in slow, menacing unison, with Lord and Lady Lyrose sneering from behind them. They were tarrying rather than charging, and Isk and Gar could hear why.

The thunder of boots was growing louder down the tower stair, and Lyrose guards were rushing along the balcony Isk and Gar had just traversed, too. Dark-armored and eager, they seemed to have spears in plenty, but no bows. Thank the Falcon for small glorking favors.

Gar bent, plucked up the still-hot sword from the blackened bones of the guard slain by the wizard's skull, and ran to the tower door juggling it and swearing as it scorched his fingers, the charred remnants of its scabbard falling away in his wake.

A spear hissed down at him, and then another-but Orthaunt's grinning skull saw those as attacks, and lashed out with more green-gold fire. Two guards shrieked up on the balcony, and one of them toppled forward over the rail, to hang motionless, head-downwards, as he cooked. No more spears were thrown.

Aside from ducking low and running as far around the curve of the tower wall as he could get from the balcony, Gar paid no heed to any of this. He was too busy hurrying-and then thrusting the burned guard's weapon through the door-rings to try to bar the tower door shut. He doubted one blade could hold back all the guards in the tower and on the balcony, but it might take them some time to break it and force entrance. Oh, they could jump down over the balcony rail, aye, but that wouldn't be a flood he couldn't stand up to, and carve as they landed.

Isk snatched open one of the doors in the wall behind where he'd been standing with her, to try to get out. Discovering a trio of grinning guards waiting in the passage beyond, she flung herself at their ankles and tripped them helplessly forward into the room.

Gar whirled from the tower door in time to see them fall. Snarling, he unshuttered his darklantern.

As Lord Lyrose's bodyguard knights raised shouts, deciding to charge him after all, he flung it-high, hard, and flaming-into the tapestries just above and behind the sneering lord and lady.

Fire flared amid the folds of the old and dusty cloth in an instant. Lady Lyrose shrieked in dismay, Lord Lyrose roared out his anger, and a knight spun around and hurled his sword vainly at the flames.

Orthaunt's skull took that as another attack, and lashed out with another deadly green-gold beam.

As that doomed guard burned, Gar sprinted back to aid Iskarra.

She had already efficiently daggered her three guards as they crashed to the floor, sprawling atop each other. He joined her just as the blades of the foremost rushing bodyguard knights reached her-and the bone-dry tapestries really caught alight.

Flames rushed up the walls with a hungry roar, racing along the tapestries in a growing, deepening thunder to ignite lesser draperies tied back around pillars all along the balconies.

The knights hacked and thrust enthusiastically at Garfist, blades ringing off his frantic parryings, but Lord Lyrose shouted, "Knights of Lyrose! Back from him, you fools! Go get the maids and the steward and everyone from the stables, with all their buckets! The rooms back yon are all timbers and paneling! Hurry!'"

The knights hesitated, looking to their lord to be sure they'd heard rightly-and Garfist managed to slice the throat out of one of them with a wild, overbalancing slash.

He staggered helplessly, desperate to regain his balance, but the knights were no longer heeding him; more of Lyrose's roared commands were sending them obediently dashing off in all directions. One flung a dagger at Iskarra as he went. She eyed its whirling, oncoming blade, seeing there a blue, sticky sheen no steel should have.

"Darfly poison," she murmured, deftly plucking the dagger out of the air in front of her nose. "Nasty."

The tower door thundered again as guards behind it tried to wrench it open, and the sword Garfist had thrust through its rings resisted them.

Again they tugged, the swordblade bending slightly and shrieking in protest as the door buckled a trifle. A guard ducked between flames to vault down over the balcony rail and run to pluck out the sword from the hall side of the door, and Gar grinned and went for him.

Only to see Lord Lyrose himself charging to intercept his unwelcome guest.

"Burn my home, will you?" he snarled as he came. "Die, thief! Slayer! Bastard!"

"Well, it's nice to meet a pompous backwoods lordling who's so eloquent," Gar taunted merrily, slashing aside the running guard's sword and driving his free fist hard into the man's throat.

Choking, the guard reeled, and Gar flung himself across the man's front to get around him and put him in his rushing lord's way, tugging at the guard's sword at the same time. He came away with it as the man spun sideways under his jerking, then hopped, stumbled-and toppled helplessly to the tiles.

The tower door thundered again, nearby.

Lord Lyrose never slowed, trampling his own guard without hesitation to get at Garfist. The splendidly glittering Lyrose sword and dagger slashed out with a deft speed that made the fat, gruff swindler grunt in surprise, and hastily back away.

"Kill him, my lord!" Lady Lyrose shrieked, eyes blazing in fury. "Kill him!"

"With pleasure!" her husband roared back, adding a bellow of laughter that sank into a grinning sneer as he stalked forward, seeking to corner Garfist.

Across the great hall, the wizard's skull spat magical fire at another running guard, and Gar could see Iskarra dodging, darting, and stabbing with her poisoned dagger at six or seven more who'd rushed in the door she'd opened. Smoke was thickening in the air now as flames reached the roof-beams, and shouting could be heard from all over Lyraunt Castle.

Garfist gave way thoughtfully as his noble foe pressed forward. Well-trained with a blade this Lord Lyrose might be, but the lord was far more gloatingly confident than anyone but an utter fool should be-given that he'd rushed eagerly in to take on Garfist alone, when he could wait for his seeming scores of guards to take care of that slaying for him.

So Lyrose was trusting in something more than sword-skill. Probably magic.

No glowing rings, though the man wore quite a few, heavy gaudy things of gems on gold, and… hoy, now, that gorget looked out of place on a man otherwise unarmored… and it stood in the way of Gar's handy fist downing his lordship as easily as he'd sent yon guard choking and strangling to the floor, too, so…

Garfist sidestepped the next Lyrose thrust, skipping lightly sideways like a Stormar table-dancer to shift his bulk faster than sneering lords would expect. Lyrose gaped at his foe, then rushed to close the gap that had opened between them.

"Die, dolt! I am Lord Magrandar Lyrose-and I am the best swordsman in all Falconfar!" he hissed.

"Oh?" Gar asked mockingly, beating the lord's gleaming blade to the tiles with his own sword. "That declaration'll look nice on yer casket! Lord Maggot Lyrose, one more idiot who thought himself the best bladesman in the world-but was, of course, wrong about that."

Their blades rang off each other twice and thrice. Then Lyrose was snarling at him and thrusting viciously, but Garfist caught that splendid sword again with his own rougher blade, forced it down, and leaned deftly in toward the lord. Lyrose brought up his dagger with a triumphant "Hah!"

But the growling adventurer had timed his lean just right. Lyrose's dagger flashed between his arm and side.

Leaving him easily able to reach the target he sought. He wanted to slash-with more force than elegant deftness-away the lord's gorget.

His blade spun in, under its edge, slicing flesh and straps alike, and sent it ringing and flashing away through the air.

Bleeding copiously from his throat, Lord Magrandar Lyrose staggered back, staring at Garfist in open-mouthed shock.

Whereupon Isk smiled thinly, tossed her newly-acquired, poisoned dagger with her customary skill-and the lord of Lyraunt Castle suddenly sprouted steel in one eye.

He went down to the tiles in silence, two stumbling strides later, leaving Lady Lyrose to shriek out her own rage and rush forward.

For two wild strides before she realized her peril-and abruptly ducked aside, darted across the hall, and out a door.

Leaving Garfist and Iskarra momentarily alone-though ominous cracks were spreading across the still-thundering tower door-as the tapestries blazed on, and flames billowed up everywhere in the ceiling overhead. Unconcernedly the floating wizard's skull grinned at them as shouts arose behind the tower door, and guards boiled back up onto the balcony.

Gar had lumbered forward to loot Lord Lyrose's body of all those golden gem-bedecked rings, but Isk plucked at his arm.

"Come," she commanded. "Bring his sword and come. We have a task, up yon stairs, and burning castles have a habit of falling down. I'd rather not be up there when this one decides to collapse!"

"Bah! Always right, y'are!" Gar growled at her, hastily clawing up Lyrose's sword and dagger. Shoving himself to his feet, he took her hand.

Ducking aside from the spears now hurtling at them from the balcony in a quickening rain, they ran for the nearest door.

Malraun found himself rising out of a fading but unpleasant dream of flaming tapestries and rushing guards, to blink up at an unfamiliar ceiling, in silent darkness.

He was lying on his back, linens thrown off him, in a large but sweat-soaked bed-soaked with his sweat-with the bare, beautiful form of Taeauna warm on his shoulder. He was in… oh, yes, the best bedchamber in conquered Darswords.

And he was now thoroughly awake.

Though his head ached cursedly and he felt as tired as if he'd not slept a wink. Lyrose had… had what?

Something had flared in his mind. Falcon rend all.

With a grunt of disgust that awakened Taeauna, he rolled over and away from her. "Idiots," he growled into the darkness. "If that castle burns, I'll lose all I've hidden there, and the Lyroses besides. And I've plans for them."

Ignoring Taeauna's reaching, soothing hand, he angrily clambered out of the bed, strode naked across the room until he was far enough from where his clothing and carried magics were all heaped together, and worked a swift spell.

Light flared briefly around his limbs, leaving him a glimpse of Taeauna kneeling on the bed staring at him in sleepy concern.

Then that radiance took him to distant Lyraunt Castle in a glowing, tingling instant, and faded away.

He was standing on the Three Thorns in the center of the great hall, with flames blazing away above him, smoke and corpses everywhere, and-

Malraun waved both hands in a mighty magic that swallowed the tapestries and hall ceiling alike, hurling them high and far up into the starry night sky, and leaving the fires nothing to feed on.

Above, the last few flickering flames fell toward him, slumping into sparks as they came, and… were gone.

Something struck the tiles right beside his leg. Malraun sprang aside and turned, even before a second spear cracked off slightly more distant tiles and skidded away across the hall.

The balcony rail was crowded with hard-eyed guards, glaring at him and hefting spears. With a silent snarl, the naked Doom waved his hands again. Magic surged out of him-and the balcony was suddenly empty of men, its ceiling and back wall dripping and glistening with fresh red gore.

He turned on his heel to peer around the hall. It no longer had a ceiling, but then fire was no longer raging in Lyraunt Castle. Yet someone had set that fire, and-

Malraun spotted an all-too-familiar face among the nearest bodies on the floor, and cursed bitterly.

Gorget gone. Taking two swift steps, he drew the dagger up out of Lord Lyrose's eye. Darfly poison, and a Lyrose blade at that. A family slaying, then.

He thrust the dagger right back into dead Magrandar's eye-and yawned, rage ebbing before a sudden rush of weariness. Idiots.

Well, at least this wasn't Hammerhand work. So it could wait until morning, when he wasn't so workmule-tired from killing wizards. And when he wasn't standing naked in a castle far from home, with only pitiful remnants of magic left. Another balcony full of guards with spears wouldn't be all that welcome, just now…

Stifling another yawn, he cast another spell-and vanished. Sleepily padding across a dark bedchamber where Taeauna's arms awaited, back to his bed in Darswords, having never noticed a certain silently-smiling floating skull-or a bone-thin woman and a fat, gruff man who were decidedly not of House Lyrose.

A handful of moments later, a dozen maids and stablehands rushed into the room, water slopping from their buckets as they slowed.

They stared around in the gloom, smelling smoke and scorched stone, but seeing nary a flame that wasn't in a brazier.

Then they saw the bodies on the floor, the balcony a-drip with blood, the floating skull, and the lack of tapestries.

It took another few gasps and oaths before a shriek went up from one maid-as she pointed tremblingly at their lord, lying dead on the tiles with a dagger sticking up out of his eye.

There were other screams, but more than a few of the maids stole reluctantly forward for a better look. And when they'd looked, and were sure, they gave the corpse of Lord Magrandar Lyrose some good, hard, heartfelt kicks.

"That was Malraun!" Iskarra hissed, panting from their long climb. "A glorking Doom of Falconfar!"

"Don't look like much bare-assed, do he?" Garfist growled back, pausing for breath three steps above her. "He'll be back come morning, mind-after he's finished rutting with whoever he so hastily left to come here and blow the roof off the hall! So let's thank him, very quietly, and be done with setting our trap and get gone from here! At least he took care of all Lyrose's guards!"

"I'm not so sure his kills were anywhere near 'all' of them, Old Ox," his partner panted, "but yes, let's do it and begone! Do we try to find the Aumrarr and use their wings to get well away? Or try to hide in the forest, and make our own way back to…"

"Heh," Garfist agreed, "that needs more thinking on, don't it? The Raurklor's dangerous for a band of less than, say, twenty armed knights at the best of times. Given what the wingbitches said about his warning-wards, d'ye think Malraun the Matchless has an Aumrarr-sniffing spell?"

They looked at each other in the faint magical gloom that filled the upper reaches of this tower, until Iskarra spread her hands and shrugged to signify she could not even mount a worthy guess.

Then she looked up the spiraling tower stair past him and hissed, "Not much farther. Who was this bedchamber built for, anyway? A babe who was a family monster? Child princes or princesses kidnapped from elsewhere? An Aumrarr, perhaps, so she'd learn to fly?"

Garfist shrugged. "Who knows why lords with castles do anything? I think they're all more'n a little mad; all that gold and power rots a man's brain."

Isk smirked. "So when did you have lots of gold and power, that I missed noticing?"

Garfist was above her on the stairs, so he didn't bother with a clever reply. He just broke wind into her face. Noisily.

The stairs ended in a plain stone door that wasn't locked. Gar and Isk traded glances over that before Garfist warily turned the door-ring and pushed the door gently open.

Inside they found no lurking monster, nor any guard. Just a high, uncurtained bed that nearly filled the room, and dust in the corners.

"Under it, right up nigh the headboard," Garfist rumbled, before Isk could remind him. "Give me the gem."

"No, my fat beloved," Isk panted gently. "Let's catch our wind first, and then I'll do the crawling beneath. Someone may want to find this bed intact-and a Doom arriving and finding it broken will be wary, for sure."

"No Doom's going to climb all those stairs," Garfist growled. "Not when he has spells to spare." He held out one hairy hand. "The gem."

Ignoring him, Iskarra strolled along the far side of the bed, both hands on her belt buckle, fingers undoubtedly touching the mindgem she'd slid into the little pouch she'd sewn behind it some seasons ago.

Halting at the head of the bed, she turned and gave him a strange little smile. "I've decided something."

"Aye?" Garfist asked warily. That sweet tone of hers was not one he liked overmuch; it always betokened something bold. And dangerous.

"I'm going to step through the gate, and drop this little mind-trap-stone behind me. After you precede me through, of course."

Garfist stared at her. "Now who's gone crazed? Without any gold an' power, too!"

Isk shook her head, still wearing that odd smile. "I'm not a wizard. Nor are you. So we'll be fine, yes?"

"If 'fine' means happily stepping into the unknown, when that unknown is a wizard's lair!" Garfist growled.

"Well, Malraun won't have made a gate that would hurt him, if he came home from here through it," Iskarra replied, the mindgem now gleaming in her hand, "for isn't this a bolthole he might use when hurt, or desperate, or in haste, or when trying to sneak into his own home because, say, another Doom has broken into it? And if we stay here in Ironthorn, half Falconfar-the armed, warlike half-are either in our laps already or will soon be here. Arriving ready to kill everyone, even before all the wizards start blasting. If we stroll quick and quiet out of a wizard's tower, we might well make it. It's folk trying to get in that have all the trouble."

"Wizard's tower," Garfist rumbled slowly. "Gems, wine, gold… Isk, ye're going to get us killed some day, ye are!"

He let his wagging, reproving finger fall-and grinned widely. "So let's be about it!"

He held out his hand, Isk took it, and he pulled, hauling both hard and upward. She came flying into his arms like the scrawny sack of bones she so nearly was, and they embraced amid chuckles.

Then they went down on their knees together. Isk promptly gave way until he was lying atop her on the floor, their arms around each other. Garfist glanced at the bedframe beside him, then at the dim dustiness beneath it, and grunted, "Don't think so."

"Doesn't look heavy enough that you can't heave it up," Iskarra murmured, from just beneath his chin. "I can always worm out of your arms and let you flatten out."

"Right, wench-lead us on to our deaths," her man growled, and they rolled together.

Almost immediately, Garfist's shoulders got stuck.

So he grunted, heaved to shove the bed up from beneath, and won them space enough to roll over again.

Into a tingling that snatched away their eyesight into swirling mists, and made the mindgem glow like a pale eye.

"Hurry," Iskarra hissed, and they rolled onward.

She let go of the mindgem, heard it drop onto a floor that sounded very far away, and they left it behind and fell together through endless, welcoming mists.