Dark Lord

CHAPTER FIVE

"Mad King?" Rod Everlar ran a hand over his eyes. He was tired, damn it, and this just about…

"So Galathans call him. Whether he's truly mad or not, no one knows but himself and the wizard who's enthralled his mind with spells, if he's not too far gone."

Rod groaned. "One of the Three?"

"Of course."

"So, is he a stone-faced killer now, or a brawler who snarls royal commands? Or does he stagger about mumbling, trying to fight the spells?"

Taeauna sighed. "You'd best hear it all, and properly. Hearken. Last of the Rothryns or not, Devaer has seen but ten-and-six summers. No one has ever observed him to gibber or drool and stagger, and he has no odd habits or pursuits. He seems older than his years, as if the crown about his brows has made him wise. He simply gives orders-coherently and with dignity-that are wild in the extreme. Commanding this noble house to make war on that one is a favorite, and has cost the realm the Sunders and the Hammerfells."

Rod felt suddenly sick and empty. He'd loved both families. He'd dreamed of the Sunders as sneering, sophisticated beauties. The men he made purring, grudge-pursuing villains, and poured his own lust-fantasies into lush descriptions of the tall and dark-haired, cat-graceful, never-sated Sunder women. The Hammerfells had been his bulging-thewed, amiably roaring "good old boys," salt of the earth like that squire in Tom Jones; what was his name-again? Worthy? Big, brawling, lusty hard-drinking types, with necks and shoulders like prize bulls, and a laughing, bellowing love of battle.

"All dead?" he heard himself asking, without much hope.

"Perhaps not. Both families were wealthy and had holdings all across the North, and they fled in tattercloak haste after the dragon fell into the lake."

"The dragon? I never put…Holdoncorp! Yes, they did, damn them. So, let's hear it: are dragons infesting the skies all across Falconfar?"

"No. At least, not yet. just the one appeared, by night, and was slain by a spell-lance that lit up the sky clear across Galath, but I'm sure you remember the legend-"

"That I wrote? Of course. 'Dragonfall dooms the realm.'"

"Indeed. A lot of nobles saw it as a sign to be heeded, and fled the realm without delay. Thereby they managed to cling to their lives, at least for, a time. They were still galloping for the borders when King Devaer took to commanding one noble family to butcher another 'traitor' family, and then announcing that his appointed slayers were themselves traitors, and sending another family out to kill them in turn. Rumors of this or that wizard compelling him to do this are a dozen a day, but there's never been any agreement as to just which wizard."

Rod groaned again, but Taeauna went right on.

"After his seventh naming of a new 'traitor house,' the nobles stopped heeding him and departed the court. Most of the courtiers and royal servants fled Galathgard on their heels, abandoning Devaer; the rest were devoured by all manner of monsters that started appearing in the castle thereafter."

Rod winced. "Is there anything left of Galath at all?"

"Of the countryside you remember? Much. Of the court and any true rule over the kingdom? Nothing. Several of my sisters dared to fly into the upper towers of the royal castle of Galathgard, earlier this season. They saw Devaer wandering alone there, shunned even by the prowling beasts, no doubt thanks to magic. Dark Helms and ever-more monsters are gathering there now; it's become a place no one who serves not that Doom…" Taeauna slapped the bedding in front of her, traced "Arlaghaun" on their folds, and as swiftly raked that name away "…dares go."

Feeling as angry as he could ever remember being, Rod snarled, "Except us."

And he reached out and put his arms around Taeauna.

She stiffened, and started to pull away, but he tightened his embrace, just holding her tightly in his arms, not moving his hands at all.

After a time, he started to hum, deep and low, as he remembered his father doing when comforting his mother; a gentle, endless, soothing tune, sad, slow and majestic rather than happy or bouncy.

And slowly, ever so slowly, he felt Taeauna relax against him. He dared to move one of his hands, then, lifting it-slowly-to stroke her hair, taking great care to keep away from the stumps of her severed wings. God, the muscles she had back there…

Slowly, and without a sound, she was yielding, sinking into his chest. They both reeked of sweat, they both had matted, tangled hair, and Rod was acutely aware that he was comforting a woman who was stone to his damp mud; she could literally tear him limb from limb, whenever she wanted to.

Taeauna sank her cheek into his shoulder, bending over to do so, and suddenly gave a great shudder, followed by a sigh that seemed longer than Rod could ever hold his breath, even long ago, as a strong young man, when he was training to be not a half-bad swimmer.

This time, when she pulled gently away, he let her go. She sat back, looking away from him, her eyes bright with unshed tears, only to toss her head, look directly into his eyes, and whisper, "Thank you, lord. I… thank you."

"So, Is he? Or not?"

The voice outside the window was gravel-rough-arid impatient, but the innkeeper's shrug held no trace of fear.

"I cannot tell. He is suspicious, and so you should know of him. What you do cannot be my affair."

"Urrhh." The grunt held neither agreement nor dispute. "The Vengeful shall be told."

A boot shifted on loose stones, and then the night outside the window was empty. In the pitch darkness, the innkeeper shrugged and slid the window panel closed.

Rod Everlar came awake suddenly and painfully, out of a dream that seemed to involve his blood-drenched bed at home, when a hard and heavy boot took him in the ribs.

"Rod Everlar!" Taeauna shouted. "Up, and defend yourself!"

Blinking in the darkness, Rod was dimly aware of Taeauna leaping over him to his left, so he flung himself to his right, trying to grab at the hilt of his sword as his body rolled over it.

Swords clanged together on one side of the bed as Rod fell off it on the other. Someone or something hissed like a snake, steel rang on steel again, and a horrible wet-throated squalling burst on Rod's ears out of the darkness. He fumbled for his sword and tried to get to his feet, as swords skirled musically and blades glanced off each other from where Taeauna must be fighting. The squalling died down into wet coughing near the floor, and two or three short, angry hisses sounded at once, one of them from right in front of Rod.

He stopped trying to get up, and used both hands to sweep his blade across in front of him, angled upwards, as if he were trying to bury an axe into a tree looming above him, or better yet, slice that axe right through a tree.

Halfway through its swing, Rod's blade hit something solid and meaty, jarring his hands to numbness, and… cut through, spattering him with unseen but swamp-reeking wetness and causing a bubbling-wet shrieking overhead that was startlingly loud and near.

As swords clanged again across the room, and he heard a sob that might have been Taeauna- Taeauna! — something bumped against Rod's left boot, so he rolled hastily to his right again, coming up against the wall.

"Taeauna?" he shouted desperately.

Behind him the unseen creature he'd wounded fell heavily onto the edge of the bed and thumped to the floor, its shrieks dying into squalling. Rod turned and lashed out with his sword again, hacking wildly at what must be lying beside him.

He couldn't see a thing, couldn't-

"Taeauna!"

She hadn't answered! Hadn't…

Wetness fountained audibly under the edge of his sword, and the squalling stopped, trailing away into a lowering hiss. Across the room, blades clashed again, and there was a sudden wet growl of anger. Taeauna cried out a short "huunh!" of effort, as if she'd done something strenuous that caused her pain, and then a loud hissing arose, and a body I humped rapidly backwards, off balance, and fell to the floor with a crash.

"Rod?" Taeauna panted. "Lord Rod?"

"Here," Rod replied uncertainly, raising his sword straight up. "I can't see a thing."

"Get to the window," she gasped. "Crawl across the bed."

Rod pointed his blade down to the floor and prodded gingerly ahead with it, finding feet almost immediately. He went around them and found the bed. "The laedlen?" he asked, remembering that Taeauna had tossed the inn's cushions to the floor and used their sacks as pillows.

"Bring…" Taeauna panted, "them."

She was hurt, all right.

"Tay, do you need my-"

"Not here," she snapped. "Help me… The window bar…"

Rod clambered across the bed, encountering something smooth and scaly that shouldn't have been there-it was wet and sticky, but thankfully didn't move-and found the floor on the far side.

"Tay," he muttered, to let her know it was him as he reached out. His fingers met with something solid. Leather. "Your leg?"

"My leg," she sighed, and he felt a trembling under his fingertips.

Rod rose, hastily. "I'm here."

"Hurry," she whispered. "Please."

Rod felt for the wall, found the wooden bar, and lifted it. It was heavy; the far end wavered as he wrestled with its weight.

"Just drop it," the Aumrarr murmured. "I'm clear."

Thankfully, Rod let go, remembering to jerk his own boots back just in time.

The bar landed with a crash, and bounced onto his toes anyway.

Its landing brought a few weak hisses out of the darkness behind them, but Taeauna was already pushing at the shutters. "Get the laedlen. We must leave."

"Out the window?"

"Yes, wise old man, out the window." Her snap was as half-hearted as it was quiet.

Rod thrust the window shutters open, smacking someone in the face who was standing outside in the night, who responded by swinging a sword right past Rod's nose.

Rod snatched up his own sword from where he'd left it leaned against his crotch, and thrust it out into the dark bulk. Hard.

It went into something, a little.

That brought a loud and furious hiss, and the blade swung back to clang against Taeauna's. She sobbed in pain, and Rod angrily thrust with his sword again, aiming for where the hissing was coming from.

Again, his steel met something solid, slicing past it into air. The hiss burst into wet squalling.

Rod pulled his sword back hastily, feeling Taeauna straining beside him to hold the foe's sword with hers, and started to hack and chop wildly, putting his strength into it.

The dark bulk abruptly fell away, thumping solidly onto the ground, its squalling ending in a wet spewing sound that quickly faded.

"Dare we…?" Rod whispered.

"Get… the… laedlen," Taeauna snarled, and half fell out the window.

Rod hurried to obey, joining her with an awkward somersault that brought him down hard on the body of whatever he'd just felled, and sent his sword bouncing one way and the two laedlen the other.

Taeauna staggered up to him. "Bring them," she gasped. "I can't carry…"

Rod brought them.

Through the half-open door, the knight's face was grim. "Dursra the peddler, lord. We got her drunk, as you ordered, and she's talking. I came straight. As you ordered."

Lord Eldalar of Hollowtree gently set aside the reluctant-to-let-go arms of his wife, and rolled out of the welcome warmth of their bed with a grunt of irritation. "Aye, she would be. Nothing good, I take it?"

"Something you should hear, before I lock her away in the old turret so her words reach no one else."

The Lord of Hollowtree threw on his breeches, stamped his boots onto his feet, shrugged on his grand tunic, scratched at his gray beard, and reached for his sword. Never let your folk see you half-dressed. Or less.

Fastening the tunic as he went, he followed Lhauntur along the dimness of the secret passage into the room of the ledgers, and thence to the long passage that led to the back chamber. Grim-faced guards nodded at their approach and stood aside.

Fat old Dursra lay on her back on the cot where prisoners were usually shackled, unbound but in no state to stand, let alone go anywhere and work any menace on anyone. The sour reek of Durraran's wine was strong in the room, and Durraran himself sat on a stool nigh Dursra's head with a bucket, awaiting the inevitable time when she'd spew.

She was babbling. "'Ware all, from one end of falcons' flight to the other, for the Fourth and greatest Doom is come… walking with a wingless Aumrarr, as humble as a frightened shepherd… as powerful as all the other Dooms together… slipping into Falconfar… stumbling until he awakens, when it will be time for wizards and kingdoms to stumble…"

Lord Eldalar listened grimly as these words were repeated. Thrice. More slurred, sometimes, but with not a word changed.

"That's all she says," Lhauntur told him gruffly. "We were right."

The Lord of Hollowtree shrugged. "We treated him well." After a moment he added, "Taeauna called him our last hope."

"Fortunate us," the knight grunted, sounding unimpressed.

Eldalar shrugged again. "My thanks, Lhauntur. I'm for bed. Rouse me if the Four Dooms start tearing Hollowtree apart around our ears. Anything less can wait for morning."

The swordblade thrust through the chink in the ramshackle wooden wall without warning. The fat man blinked at it for a moment in the feeble light of the candle-lantern, and then brought one of his great hairy fists down on it, as hard as he could.

The sword broke off with a ringing clang.

"Cheap stuff," the man rumbled. "This'll be the gels' father, come calling."

He shuttered the lantern, snatched up the door-bar, flung the door open, and rammed one end of the door-bar out into the night, hard.

It struck something solid. There was a wet, strangled cry, something small and light bounced off his boots, and then the scream started; a long, raw, descending cry that was punctuated by several crashes of the railings of various flights of stairs being struck on the way down.

The fat man slammed the door, dropped the bar back into place, and snatched the lamp off the table to peer at what had hit his boots. A human tooth, trailing several threads of bright red blood.

The fat man grinned, ere turning to bellow, "Isk, he's caught up to us again! Start packing!"

The stream of profanity that came from the other room made him grin all the wider. Ah, dainty ladies these days…

Suddenly the moon showed itself through fast-scudding, smokelike clouds, night going from gropingly dark to merely dim in an instant. Rod and Taeauna could suddenly see that they were staggering along an Arbridge alley together, rather than merely feeling their way along it. There came an angry hiss from far behind them.

Rod turned his head and saw snake-headed men, scales gleaming in the moonlight: three of them, with drawn swords in their hands.

"Shit," he spat, "I don't remember…"

"This would be something else you can blame on Holdoncorp," Taeauna said grimly, leaning on him even more heavily. "Just keep going. Head for those trees ahead."

Rod obeyed. "Looks… Looks like a cemetery." He glanced back over his shoulder again. "They'll catch us long before we get there."

"I know not 'cemetery,'" the Aumrarr said calmly. " Yon's a burial yard, if that's what you mean. Where folk lay their kin to rest under enspelled stones."

Rod frowned. "Enspelled stones?"

"To keep the dead down," Taeauna explained. Rod could see dark wetness all down her belly and legs, and she was using her sword like a walking stick as well as clinging to him. He looked back again.

"They're-"

"Keep going," the Aumrarr snapped. "Drag me."

"I… yes, Taeauna."

Her grin was more a grimace of pain than anything else. "That's better," she said. And then staggered, her face twisting, and she gasped, "Rauthgul!"

Rauthgul. Rod's invented Falconfar equivalent for the f-word.

Rauthgul indeed, damn it!

There was no way they were going to reach the yard before the snake-men caught them, no way! And the burial yard was just that: a yard, an open plot of grass and trees walled on three sides but open to a street that Rod and the Aumrarr would soon be crossing. Or would try to; there remained the little matter of winning the sword-fight that would erupt right in the middle of it, when the snake-men caught up with them.

There were grassy humps in that yard that must be tombs, and little stone houses, too, dark with moss and age; crypts? The trees were old and gnarled giants, and it all might as well have been on the far side of the Falconspires, for all the likelihood Rod Everlar had of ever reaching them alive.

They were going to die here, a handful of minutes from now. He and Taeauna were going to be sliced and hacked apart, butchered very messily by swords Rod hadn't a hope in Hades of stopping.

Dark-armored figures suddenly streamed out of a side alley, hacking and thrusting, and a snake-man went down, making those horrible squalling sounds. Dark Helms!

"Hurry!" Taeauna gasped, clutching at the throat of Rod's tunic, all of her weight hanging from her claw-like fingers. "Lord, hurry! Please!"

Her last word was a sob of pain, as tears came and she shuddered all over, sagging against him.

Rod swore and gasped and got an arm around her, struggling to shift her weight to his hip so he could limp along in clumsy haste.

Swords rang off each other behind them, someone groaned, there was some hissing, and then they were out onto the dust of the street, Taeauna hanging like a dead weight. Surely there'd be Dark Helms pelting this way in a moment or two.

When they reached the grassy unevenness of the burial yard, Taeauna clawed her way up Rod until she was upright and peered into the night gloom.

Trees and crypts and their shadows were all around; Rod glanced back at the battle now going on. There seemed to be more snake-men, yet the Dark Helms weren't retreating. Fighters were sagging down with wounded groans or slumping dead, but the fray wasn't getting any closer. There just might be a chance for…

"That one," the Aumrarr said wearily. "Slide the stone aside."

Rod looked at the dark slab of stone, then at her pain-wracked face, and shook his head in disbelief. It was about the size of a door and as thick as his hand, lying on the ground on a lip of stone blocks set into the grass.

"Let me down," Taeauna whispered, "and move that stone."

Rod did as he was told, leaving the Aumrarr sitting facing the fight back in the alley with her sword across her knees. He tapped the stone with the toe of his boot; it was heavy, all right.

Thrusting his sword into the turf near at hand, he knelt down, put his fingers along the edge of the slab, and heaved.

He managed only to overbalance face-first onto the stone, skidding along on his nose to the accompaniment of Taeauna's ragged, pain-ridden laughter. When he rolled onto his side to glare at her, she was clutching her belly and wincing at the pain of her own mirth.

"Don't…" she gasped. She then put her head on her knees and managed to say, "Don't make me laugh again, please. It hurts so."

"It may astonish you to learn this," Rod growled, as he got up, "but Lord Archwizard Rod ruddy Everlar wasn't trying to make you laugh. I can't move this rauthgulling thing. It must weigh as much as a car!"

"Car?"

"Oh, never mind," Rod snapped wearily, going back to the slab to try again.

"Lord," Taeauna hissed urgently through clenched teeth, "look for a stone among the rest, around the edge, with a slot in it. Put your sword in the slot, and thrust sidewise to the slab. Across, if you take my meaning. Don't twist, or you'll break the sword."

Rod stared at her wordlessly, then shrugged and looked for such a stone. It looked to be right by his foot. "This slot; can it be full of moss?"

"Yes. Very likely."

Rod snatched his sword out of the ground, looked back at the fight, and saw that the snake-men seemed to be down to an agonized handful that the Dark Helms were toying with, stabbing the scaled hides at will. Several Dark Helms had turned from this to start stalking toward the burial yard. They were still some strides away, across the street. Rod thrust his sword into the slot and heaved sideways, toward the slab.

For once in his life, he'd guessed right. There was a moment of stony grating, when not much happened. Then the slab swung aside, moving on some sort of hidden pivot, and leaving him staring down into a hole.

The feeble moonlight showed him stone steps leading down into darkness, then promptly went away as fingers of cloud slid over the moon.'

"Taeauna?" Rod turned to the Aumrarr. He could just see the glint of her sword in the returned darkness; it wasn't moving. He stumbled over to her. "Taeauna?"

She was slumped over her blade, silent and unmoving. Great.

Hearing the boots of the Dark Helms crunching on the gravel of the street, Rod sheathed his sword, tucked Taeauna's under his arm, and started tugging the limp, heavy Aumrarr toward the hole. He could move her, but could he get her down those stairs before a Dark Helm diced them both? Darkness didn't seem to much bother them, as far as he could tell thus far.

Huh. Thus far. As if there were going to be any "later" for him to leisurely observe the Dark Helms.

He got Taeauna down the hole by the simple stratagem of tripping on the edge of one of the lip-stones and falling into the unknown, her body tumbling atop his.

The landing hurt, his shoulders and elbow slamming numbingly down on very hard stone, before Rod bumped and slithered sideways down unseen steps to the sound of loud stony grating overhead.

Silence fell. He was lying on his back, on hard and smooth stone, somewhere cold and damp, with Taeauna lying half atop him. His own breathing was loud in his ears, but he could hear none of the faint night sounds of Arbridge, and the faint touch of night breezes was gone. That grating noise must have been the tomb closing.

Had the Dark Helms shut him in here to die slowly in the dark? Or had he hit something in his fall that moved the slab, and the Helms were waiting above it right now, swords poised to stab?

"Happy choices," he said aloud, hearing his words fall into dead and empty darkness.

Well, at least nothing felt broken, and he hadn't clonked his head. Until greeting the slab with his nose, he hadn't even…

Taeauna! God, he must have hit his head to forget her!

She was dying, or dead already, leaving him alone in the dark in a tomb in Falconfar. Some Lord Archwizard and Doom he was! Hah. Doomed, yes, but…

Her sword was lost somewhere in the darkness- he remembered it clattering during his fall-but she was right here. Lying on top of his scabbarded sword, limp and heavy.

He couldn't bear to deliberately slice himself with a sword anyhow. He would have to use his dagger, or one of hers; whatever he could reach. He found her mouth with his fingers, traced the line of her jaw, and trembled at the sudden thought of losing her. His other hand, scrabbling awkwardly up and back along his ribs, found the pommel of his dagger.

He slapped it, to fix in his mind where it was, and began the heaving and wriggling process of getting Taeauna off his other arm without cracking her head on anything, or losing track of her in this pitch darkness.

When he could move both arms, he drew the dagger, reached with his other hand to her mouth again, and found that she still wasn't breathing, but at least her lips were parted. He then put the dagger against the back of his hand, his gorge suddenly rising, and… sliced.

It made him feel sick; he thrust the thumb of his dagger-hand into the warm wetness to make sure he was bleeding, and then put his cut hand to Taeauna's mouth, rolling over to make sure his blood could drip between her lips.

Blue fire kindled on her tongue, and grew like a blue-white candle, showing him her face, blue fire trickling down her throat.

She coughed, convulsed, swallowed, and whooped for air. Then her hands came up and gripped his cut hand like two iron-hard gauntlets, forcing him over onto his face as she turned his hand so she could suck… suck greedily, blue fire leaking out around her mouth as she shuddered, twisted, and sucked more.

Only to fall back, panting, letting go of Rod's healed hand. Her eyes were closed, and she moaned.

A moan of pain and… hunger?

The blue glow was fading fast; Rod fumbled with the dagger and stabbed himself through his palm.

"Arrghh!" Jesus, it hurt! God damn!

He found himself sobbing, drenched with sweat and over on his face again on the stone, bright blue ribbons of blood running down Taeauna's cheeks as she sucked at him so fiercely he thought skin and flesh, tendons and all were going to be drawn out of him and down her throat.

Rod's glowing blood slowly pooled on the stone beside his face, flowing outwards to seep down old cracks in the stone.

And the stone suddenly heaved under them!

Taeauna tumbled out of sight, over the edge, and Rod found himself pitching off the tilting slab, too, as a cold and eerie light flooded up into the tomb from below.

Rod rolled over, fear sudden and icy rising in him. Fingers of bone, trailing tatters of grave shrouding, were curled around the edges of the slab, thrusting it up from beneath. The slab was cracked across in two places, and was beginning to come apart…

"Shit! Oh, God bloody shit!" Rod scrambled to his feet and away, almost weeping those words. He'd never realized they'd fallen onto the top of a huge stone coffin, not the tomb floor, and now… and now…

He pounced on Taeauna, who was lying in a limp heap just two strides away, and shook her, yelling, "Tay! Taeauna! Wake up! What do I do? What do I do?"

She groaned, her eyes still closed, and in a frenzy Rod turned his back on whatever was rising out of the tomb, refusing to look at it, and stabbed at his hand again.

Blood spattered Taeauna's face, then glowed blue once more as he slapped his hand across her mouth and held it there. She made a muffled moaning sound, and moved feebly in his grasp. "Wake up, damn you!" he cried.

Which was when something bony and very, very cold touched Rod Everlar's shoulder.