Dark Lord

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“We turn aside here," Deldragon murmured, absently stroking his flaxen mustache, his eyes very blue in the glow of his sword. "I'm going to open a door, and I need you both to be very, very quiet. Step carefully, and put out a hand to touch my back as we move forward. Things are going to be dark."

The velduke quelled the faint magical sword-glow that had been giving them light enough to see by, and Rod and Taeauna heard the faintest of metallic scrapings as he lifted a metal rod out of a hasp, and swung wide a door they could barely see.

Beyond it, light was streaming up out of a stout iron grating in the stone floor of a room. The velduke approached cautiously; the radiance below was growing stronger, moving in the cellar level below them, to the sound of boots tramping from Rod's right toward his left, the light of a lantern moving with them. Taeauna reached her hand back for Rod, took hold of his arm, and towed him gently in a wide circle around the grating, keeping well back from it, so they were looking down through it at an angle, rather than standing at its edge peering down.

Rod looked, and saw.

A long, narrow cellar passage stretched straight as an arrow below, passing beneath the grating. There were doors in its walls here and there, and striding along it, right underneath him and heading steadily on down the passage, were twenty or thirty Dark Helms, carrying a large, securely tied bundle in their midst.

The bundle looked like a large, burly-limbed human with three or four lorn wrapped around him that had been lashed together into one helpless mass. Helpless, but squirming. Rod was sure he'd seen something straining to move within all those bindings. The light was coming from lanterns carried by the Dark Helms, and was already lessening, moving away from the grating.

"Toward the well," the velduke murmured. His voice was barely more than a whisper, and every bit as grim as an old gravedigger Rod had once talked to, who'd been burying his old wartime buddies, one after another, as their times ran out.

"So is there a way down, hereabouts?" Taeauna asked just as quietly, her slender but strong arms reaching out to tow Rod and Deldragon close together, so they could whisper and clearly be heard. "Or do we rush along on this level, try to get ahead of them, and descend somewhere closer to the well?"

"We can either go about three chambers that way, and down a staircase that'll let us travel parallel to the Helms," Deldragon replied, "or, yes, we…"

He stiffened, broke off, and stared down through the grating. Rod and Taeauna turned, did the same, and found themselves looking down at a lone woman; skeleton-thin and not young, yet somehow alluring. She was skulking along as silently as possible, staring ahead as if she knew full well she was following the now-vanished Dark Helms.

She was looking all around as she came, too, peering alertly everywhere. She didn't miss noticing the grating, and gave it a long, steady stare, just as if she could see the three people standing motionless in the dark room above her, their heads close together.

Then she moved on, out of their view, and Deldragon was shaking his head in amazement and towing Rod and Taeauna on across the room to a door on its far wall.

When they were through it and he'd closed it behind them, the velduke caused his sword to glow again, and over its faint, ghostly light told them, "That woman; I met her years ago, in a Stormar port, and never thought to see her here. She'll be up to no good, however she came to be inside my walls. I'm going to follow her."

"This is your home, Darendarr, and your fight," Taeauna murmured. "We're with you. Yet tell us more of yon woman. 'Years ago,' you said; you're sure this is the same person?"

"That face is not one I could mistake, and she has the same bag-of-bones build, the same gait; that lilt of the hips that tells you you're seeing a woman and not a young and thin lad. No, I'm sure. That's Rosera, or so she called herself then."

"Then?" Rod asked eagerly, more than intrigued.

Deldragon gave him a wry smile. "Once upon a time, I was a young rake, wandering around the Stormar ports and farther afield, in part because my father told me in no uncertain terms, with the aid of a bull whip, what he'd do to me if I drank and wenched my way across Galath. I was in Hrathlar, I think it was, when I saw this Rosera."

Taeauna grinned. "Saw her how, Darendarr? Come, we're not of Bowrock; there's no need to be coy before our ears."

The velduke sighed as he opened a door into the next chamber, this one full of barrels, and led the way across it to another door. "Well, let's just say she was dancing on tables in a dockfront tavern then, and so slender and supple a pleasure-lass was she that she could travel around a bed full of half-drunken men so swiftly and with such ease that I thought she must be using magic. She was agile enough a little later to squeeze out a tiny window with all their purses while they slept, avoiding the bedchamber's barred and guarded door."

"This 'they' included you, didn't it?" Taeauna teased.

"Of course," Deldragon sighed, "but there's no need at all to spread this tale about. I heard much more about her in Hrathlar, after that, back in those days. Suffice it to say that she's the sort that's always up to something, making a living by sly means. So if she's here, now, it bodes ill for Bowrock. Not to mention that I dislike my cellars being full of unwanted guests I did not greet, nor welcomed, nor had even saw entering my home. Come!"

He opened the door into another dark room, threaded his way down it through a maze of stacked pots and tables of dust-covered carvings and tools, and down a stair, his blade glowing faintly and eerily in the gloom.

"I don't want to shout and chase her, mind," he warned. "I want to follow her and see where she leads us. And 1 doubt not but that means we'll have to be exceedingly, glorkingly quiet, unless she's gone deaf down the years since I saw her."

"She left quite an impression," the Aumrarr purred. "Was she that good?"

The velduke turned to regard her, held up his blade so its glow shone on his face and she could see him rolling his eyes, and sighed heavily. Then, without a word, he turned away to thrust open the door at the bottom of the stairs, and led them out into another passage.

"How blasted big is this keep?" Rod whispered to Taeauna, who gave him a wide, understanding grin by way of reply.

Then they were stepping out into one of the largest rooms he'd ever seen in his life. Not high-ceilinged, like a cathedral or one of those towering hotels with a central atrium that elevators slid up and down the many-balconied sides of, but more like some basements he'd been in, with rough pillars here and there in odd places. Except that those basements had been cluttered and small. This room seemed to be empty of everything except pillars and echoes, and was very, very big.

"Jesus," he muttered, not quite under his breath. "What would something this big ever be used for?"

"Living," Deldragon replied, striding off along one wall. Rod had to trot to keep up with him and hear the rest of his reply: "Every jack, lass, and child in Bowrock. If dragons come mating."

"Dragons come mating? What, they cast lustful eyes on humans and tear us apart trying to, uh… you know?"

The velduke sighed. "You are from a far country, aren't you? Not often, but often enough that everyone remembers it all, at least in cradle-tales; every two or three centuries, I suppose, dragons get the urge to mate. She-dragons fly around seeking suitable lairs, always stone cities or fortresses men have built, and take possession of them. Usually that means shattering many of the interior buildings to form a bed of stone she can lie on, and it always means slaying or driving out any humans in the place." "Oh."

"There's more than that, man. The drakes then get into the act; the male dragons. They roam the skies seeking likely-looking females lying waiting in their lairs, and try to conquer them in playful battles. If other males show up, the males end their wooing-frays and fight each other to the death, often wrecking much of the lair in the struggle, or crushing other buildings nearby when the vanquished dragon crashes to earth, dying, and often rolling around in its agonies. Those broken lairs don't seem to bother the she-dragons; they proceed to mate, then ferociously guard the area against all intrusion, including humans who've been there all along, but come to the notice of the wyrms, until the wyrmlings hatch, grow strong enough to fly, and depart with their mother. As I said, this doesn't happen often, but when it does…" The velduke stopped and swept his hand out in a slow flourish, to indicate the vast, echoing darkness before them.

"I'm a writer," Rod whispered. "Words aren't supposed to fail me. And 'holy shit' hardly seems appropriate, somehow."

"Oh, I don't know," Taeauna murmured, from just behind him. "They cover the matter pretty well, I'd say."

Deldragon turned with his hand on the ring of another door. "We go through a narrow spot, here. Stay close to me." He tugged, the door groaned open, and the ghostly glow of his blade moved into deep darkness.

The talons of the lorn were sharp, and embedded deeply, agonizingly, in his shoulders and nigh his elbows just below, on his left arm, and just above on his right. They were obviously trying to prevent him bending his arms.

Fair enough. He was obviously trying to kill them, by thrusting something strong, like his fingers, or sharp, like the little stabbing knife normally sheathed at the inside of his wrist deep into their eyes. The ropes so tightly wound around them all prevented either side getting away from the other, and with their wings bound so tightly against them, the lorn were unable to properly call upon their strong shoulder muscles to overpower the large and well-muscled human in their midst.

Wherefore one lorn was dead already, and dripping forth brains and life-blood in a slow trail of gore from one eyesocket, and another was frantically trying to drive its claws right.through the fat arm they were embedded in, in an attempt to stop the arm's owner from slowly sawing off the talons of its other claw, to clear a path to its eyes.

A vain attempt. Talon after talon was dropping off, leaking blood in the wake of the bundle, and not only were the Dark Helms not helping (a few simple blows about the human's head would have ended its attacks, surely), they were chuckling and talking of placing bets on what would happen next!

This left the most helpless lorn-the one hanging downwards, its face seeing only stone floor sliding endlessly past-seething, and the other one hissing and voiding itself in fear, as it lost talons amid much pain.

Those talons were iron-hard, but the fingers above them could be cut as readily as Garfist sliced meat on a fireside platter. And being as it didn't seem likely he'd ever see a fireside meal again, he went on carving, and remembering those sizzling juices, the spiced sauces Isk prepared so superbly, the mouth-watering taste of the best roast boar they'd fire-spitted together…

His gut rumbled loudly in sudden hunger, suddenly filling both lorn with terror and causing them to sob involuntarily. Humans ate lorn? Had they but known!

The Dark Helms guffawed anew.

If Garfist died…

Iskarra winced at the thought, ran her fingers over the bony knuckles of the hand she was clutching her dagger with, and shook her head.

She'd go on, if she weren't dying herself by then. She'd not greet certain death by fighting hopeless odds, but she'd not abandon her old ox either, not while there was still a shred of hope, and if fighting for him landed her in a hopeless fray, then so be it.

Glorking, glorking wizards.

It had to be a wizard; who else could make Dark Helms and lorn work together? Or bring lorn down into dark cellars, where they'd never venture on their own, so hating the likelihood of not being able to fly; they even hated flying through windows into the largest rooms. So if she could hurl a dagger through a wizard's eye and then shout to the Dark Helms that the lorn had been promised them as meals, and start the Helms fighting the lorn…

It was a very slim chance for her, and less than that for Garfist, but at least they might not be the only ones who died this day.

"There's the wizard," Deldragon muttered, stroking his mustache. His voice was barely more than a whisper, and was almost lost to Rod and Taeauna in the humming of the gate.

Like the others, Rod knew what it was without anyone saying a word. A magical doorway linking the cellar of Deldragon's keep to somewhere else. It dominated the room, an arch of writhing, humming purple flame as high as three men. It burned without consuming anything, rooted in two small braziers at both ends but obviously not fueled by them. Two metal spheres were part of its flamings on one side of its curve, and a withered, shriveled, nigh-skeletal human dangled from them, his armor hanging loose or dropping off, piece by no-longer-fitting piece.

The cellar room was big, and many passages met in it, but the other room, the room that was somewhere else, that could be seen only through the arch, and not by looking around or past it, looked larger, and better lit. The line of Dark Helms marching out of it and into Deldragon's keep seemed to stretch a long way, and the velduke cursed softly at the sight of it.

Standing beside the gate was a young, coldly smiling man in dark thigh-length robes over darker breeches and boots. He looked as unkempt as a tavern-lounging sailor, with curly, dirty-gold hair, bristling brows and a ragged fringe of a beard along his jaw, but something about him-the arrogant way he carried himself, or his large and dark eyes, or their purple hue-shouted "Wizard!"

For a thrilling moment Rod felt like shouting, "Wizard!" himself, and striding into the room to flick his finger and cause the sneering man to fly apart in a flood of black tatters of robe, tumbling bones, and unpleasant wetness. But of course, here that wouldn't happen. Here in Falconfar he seemed to have no power at all, and would only be inviting his own swift death. "Swift" as in: before Rod Everlar, the Shaper, the Creator, the founder of this crazy feast, could do anything else at all.

Beside him in the darkness of their disused passage, lying chin-on-the-floor just as he was, Deldragon and Taeauna were keeping very still, and very quiet. The velduke had done something swift and magical to make his sword as black as pitch, and about as shiny.

They were no longer watching the line of marching Dark Helms. Instead, they were seeing a small knot of Helms marching up to the wizard, carrying a securely bound bundle between them. It was dripping blood, and there seemed to be frantic struggling going on, inside those bonds.

The wizard gestured that the bundle be lowered to the ground, and the lashings around it cut apart.

The bundle was duly lowered, and two Dark Helms went to their knees on either side of it, daggers in hand. The others all drew their swords and held them so the points hovered above the thickest central part of the bundle. The wizard watched, smiling. And Velduke Deldragon aimed his sword with slow and silent care.

The bonds parted, springing back. Freed lorn wings flapped and writhed, there was a frantic wriggling, an arm darted out of the opening bundle with a dagger flashing in its hand, Dark Helms shouted commands-and Deldragon's sword spat fire across the room straight into the wizard's face, hurling him backwards.

The mage's shoulder touched the purple fire of the gate for a moment and simply vanished.

Face staring in disbelieving pain, the wizard shrieked and frantically flung himself away from the gate; he ended up greeting the floor, face-first. Dark Helms by the dozens turned to glare at the source of the flame, and the velduke triggered his blade again, waving it back and forth to lash many of those menacingly staring Helms with flame.

Fire rushing and flickering around their helms, Dark Helms surged across the room at Rod and Taeauna and Deldragon, and beyond them, a thin female figure sprinted across the room as swiftly as an arrow in flight, and smashed right into a lorn that was flapping its way free of the bundle.

A dagger flashed twice, quickly, and the lorn sagged.

The figure leaned past it to slash at the golden-haired wizard as he scrambled to his feet to try to get out of reach, but brief threads of lightning crackled from the mage to the dagger blade, driving the woman with the knife back in obvious pain. Between them, the dying lorn fell to the floor.

At the same moment, the bundle heaved up into a large, fat, reeling man shedding two dead, limp lorn. He reached out for the wizard with his dagger.

The wizard stepped hastily back, shouting, "Take him! Take him and put his hands on the globes!"

Dark Helms turned their heads to the mage who pointed impatiently at the fat man. "Take him!" Then his pointing arm swept up to indicate the nigh-skeletal man hanging like an empty sack from the two spheres that were floating in the humming purple fire of the gate-arch. "And put his hands there! On those!" The wizard's pointing finger stabbed at the air impatiently, indicating the globes. "Hurry!"

Over the helms of the Dark Helm warriors advancing cautiously toward them, Rod, Taeauna, and Deldragon could see the Helms closest to the wizard hesitate for a moment, and then close in on the fat man.

"No swords!" the wizard shouted at them. "I want him unharmed. The man who cuts him, dies!"

The Helms lurched to untidy stops, swords flashing and singing as they were hastily sheathed. The fat man used that time to rush at the wizard, who backed away and tried to duck behind some Dark Helms. As the Helms vainly tried to grapple with the fat man and avoid hosting deep thrusts of his dagger, with much shoving and groaning and reeling, the wizard crouched and tried to cast a spell.

Deldragon unleashed his sword again, but the mage ducked lower and the flames meant for him raged around the shoulders of two cursing, writhing Dark Helms instead.

Taeauna, Rod, and the velduke were on their feet now, awaiting the menacing line of Dark Helms closing in on them, barely able to see the wizard and the fat man over looming armored shoulders. They saw Rosera darting past them both.

Then the Dark Helms were upon them, and there was no time to watch anything, anymore. Swords rang as the velduke and Taeauna parried and struck aside three blades each, in a whirlwind of steel that Rod winced at the very thought of, as he backed away from the Dark Helms stalking after him, and then started to back in behind his companions as he realized his retreat was baring Taeauna's side to any Helm who cared to stick a sword in it.

Deldragon snatched out his dagger in his other hand, and tried to parry with it so he could aim his sword again and unleash more sword-fire. Before he could, they heard the wizard shout in rage and pain. A spell like a wall of writhing lightnings crashed into the backsides of the Dark Helms facing Rod, Taeauna, and the velduke, and they roared and writhed wildly in agony and scattered, staggering weakly.

Taeauna was upon them like a flash, her slender sword thrusting up under the edge of one helm and then another, dead men slumping in her wake as their blood spattered the floor in front of them and they sank down to join it. Rod's stomach heaved, and he trotted desperately away from a Dark Helm intent on disembowelment, but he caught a glimpse of what had made the wizard strike at his own warriors.

The Rosera woman had caught his wrist in some sort of thin black cord-well, damn! She'd lassooed him, just like in the movies! — and dragged it around to spoil his aim. He was trying to tug free now, shrieking curses at her and fending off her dagger with his own; he didn't dare try to slice the cord because he needed his metal fang to parry hers.

Right beside the golden-haired wizard, a Dark Helm toppled over as the fat man tore a bloody dagger out of his throat, still wrestling with other Dark Helms, and from across the room, more Dark Helms were rushing to the wizard's aid.

The Rosera woman screamed a curse of her own as she was forced to turn and deal with them, the wizard whirled triumphantly away from her to slice her cord away from his wrist, the fat man bellowed in triumph as another pair of Dark Helms went down before him, and…

Rod was suddenly falling, his boots slipping helplessly in something wet and sticky. Much nearer Helms were looming up over him, swords reaching down-

And Taeauna crashed into those warriors from one side, hurling herself against them to make them lurch and jostle, their swords waving everywhere except at Rod.

Deldragon fired his sword again, sending fire howling just over Taeauna's wingless back. Rod saw the stump of one of her severed wings blacken and start to sizzle, as the sword-fire streamed around it, and the wizard screamed as that fire found his newly freed hand and blasted it, fingers smashed limp and blackened.

Then the Dark Helms closed in over Rod again, and were toppling over on him with wet sobs, Taeauna's blade darting back out of their throats dark and wet and glistening, blood spraying all over Rod as they came down, huge and dark and-

WHAM. Heavy!

Rod groaned and twisted as the armored hulks slammed into him and bounced him hard up off the stone floor and down again. All his wind had been driven out of him, he couldn't-

Couldn't-

Something boomed, the floor shuddered under Rod, and he was bouncing again, wincing and gasping for breath enough to moan, fighting to…

The dead men atop him were suddenly gone, plucked and torn away. All over the room Rod could hear a strange thudding: body after body being driven against stone, or against other bodies already against that stone…

Panting, shoulders settling against the trembling, calming floor, he could see the room around him again now.

The golden-haired wizard stood alone, staring down at his mangled hand. There was no one left around him at all except the ragged flesh-and-bones thing hanging from the gate. He must have managed some magic that hurled people away from him, probably to keep the big man or the Rosera woman from knifing him.

Behind him, the gate was noticeably darker, the hum of its flames lower and quieter. As Rod stared at it, it flickered.

That momentary darkening seemed to enrage the wizard. "Warriors of Arlaghaun, obey me!" he bellowed. "Seize him, and him, and him, and her, and bring them all here, disarmed, to the gate!"

His pointing hand had indicated the fat man, the velduke, Taeauna, and Rod. Great.

So, was this Arlaghaun? One of the Dooms? He looked rather young to have terrorized Falconfar, but then, if something Rod wrote could change everything, overnight…

But wait. How could this wizard be so powerful in Falconfar, yet a complete stranger? He'd glanced at all the Holdoncorp stuff, he was sure he had. Oh. Right. He wasn't the only Shaper, and perhaps their designers changed Falconfar whenever they typed stuff into their computers, not just when it got published.

And perhaps they weren't the only other Shapers. Shit.

"Wound them not!" the wizard called.

Right. Thanks for the reminder. He had no time just now for thinking about how things worked in Falconfar; he had to worry about staying alive. Again.

Rod had his breath back now. The floor cold and hard under him, he turned his head to look the other way, away from the humming purple fire of the gate.

Dark Helms were coming for him, of course, trotting across the room from where the wizard's spell had driven them. Swords sheathed, but hands outstretched to grab.

As Rod watched, one of them stiffened, staggered, and then fell. Taeauna was trotting behind him, bloody blade in hand, with her own hulking escort of dark-armored warriors closing in behind her. Which meant that the other flurry of Dark Helms, yonder, must be centered around the velduke.

"I threw a party," he murmured, rolling over to get up and run, "and men with swords came."

There were sudden grunts and sounds of struggling from the direction of the wizard; Rod looked that way as he gained his feet again, and saw the big man, bloody dagger in hand, straining in the grip of more than a dozen Dark Helms, fighting to stay where he was as they tugged and shoved, trying to drag him closer to the gate.

Fourteen-no, sixteen-to one…

The big man might be a mountain to each of them, but together they were hauling him inexorably toward the gate.

Rod ran for the darkness, away from the gate but also away from the Dark Helms, as they started running, too. Taeauna was surrounded by a swarm of them, now, just like Deldragon and the fat man. The Rosera woman, where was she?

Dark Helms were coming at him from this direction too, now; with every stride he was running to meet them. Rod breathed a bitter curse and turned in the only direction that wasn't full of Dark Helms.

Toward the gate. They were herding him; they're herding us all.

"Bastards," he hissed aloud. "Goddamned bloody bastards."

He saw the Rosera woman leaping out of the darkness again, racing past the wizard to pounce from behind on the Dark Helms struggling with the fat man. The wizard staggered hastily back with a shout: she'd thrown something, probably a small knife, into the mage's face on her way past.

Well, why shouldn't he throw something at the wizard, too?

Because I have nothing to throw, and I'm afraid of what he'll do to me, after…

The Rosera woman had a dagger in her hand, and was plunging it up under helm after helm from behind, darting and racing along the line of struggling warriors, letting them sag and fall in her wake. The fat man was still roaring and grunting in their midst, shouting something that sounded like, "Isk! Keep back! Back, hraul you!"

More Dark Helms were rushing at the fat man, now, slamming into the knot already around him and driving it a few staggering steps closer to the gate. Others rushed around it, trying to get at the woman who half-climbed a Dark Helm from behind to lean desperately in and get a hand on the fat man or something he was wearing.

What looked like a grotesquely long pink tongue-the tongue of a giant, as wide as the woman's head-shot out from where her reaching hand was, over her shoulder, stretching like bubble gum Rod had once seen a kid pull and snap, thinner and longer and thinner and longer…

The golden-haired wizard ducked aside, batting at it with his mangled hand, but it swooped around him in the air, and slapped across his face like a wet pink mask. And tightened, and pulled.

The wizard came staggering blindly toward the battling fat man and his Dark Helms.

"Smother him," Rod distinctly heard the Rosera woman gasp, before Dark Helms grabbed her and dragged her down. He saw daggers reach up for the long pink tongue, to slash and pierce.

And the pink tongue came away from the fat man with a wet, sticky sucking sound and snapped through the air to join itself, whipping around the wizard's head with a loud crack that might have been the man's neck breaking, so suddenly did he spin around and fall limply to the floor-right in the mouth of the gate.

Which flickered again.

And again, darker this time.

It was answered with a bright flash, a line of flame racing through the air from behind Rod to claw at the knot of Dark Helms. Some of them turned, breaking free, to see where this sudden torment was coming from.

The velduke was using his sword-fire again.

Well, why not? Save it for when, exactly? Death could come right now, and-

More Dark Helms turned, and Rod caught a glimpse of the fat man again, still struggling against dozens of gripping hands.

It seemed Deldragon had seen the man, too. The next bolt of flame was lower, racing at warriors' ankles.

Rod glanced at the Dark Helms closing in on him, and risked a look toward where the velduke must be. Dark Helms were heaped there; Deldragon must have unleashed some sort of magic on them, to free himself. Off to one side was another struggling mass of warriors, like the one gathered around the fat man. That must be Taeauna.

He should do something, should-

Do what? He couldn't even get to her, across the beams of sword-fire, and-

Dark Helms started shrieking, back by the gate. Rod turned his head in time to watch the warriors around the fat man start to fall over, still in one huge, struggling clump. They were falling because many of them seemed to have no feet anymore, just blackened stumps.

Rod's stomach heaved again, urgently this time.

As cruel fingers caught hold of his arms and shoulders, and what felt like a speeding truck-a truck that had lots of hard knees, and bad breath, and clanking armor-slammed into his back.