"Has he?" Taeauna
murmured. "You're sure he's not ridden by a Doom, who sent him here to slay or capture us?"
Tindror sighed and waved his arms wide, his drawn sword still in his hand. "I can be certain of nothing, Tay; you know that. Yet he's the last noble in all Galath I'd suspect of doing any wizard's bidding. Yes, yes, I know that makes him a more suitable wizard's pawn than the rest of us, but somehow I just can't believe... no. No."
The bearded baron shook his head, and then shrugged. "And if he is? How can we stand against him? Murlstag's men were more than my loyal blades can handle; Deldragon can bury us in knights, all of them better armed and armored than we are. So when this fray is done, and he comes to our doors, I'll let him in, and welcome him as the friend he has always been to me. And if he then seizes you and your silent lord, or butchers me where I stand, and all of my household with me, then... he does so. Whether I like the fate he hands me or not, what can I do?"
Four dirty-booted merchants
crouched behind spreading saliva branches and peered out over a battlefield at the distant towers of Wrathgard. They wore no badge or colors to tell Falconfar they were of the Vengeful, but they didn't need to. Real merchants would have been fleeing as fast and as far as they could from this pitched battle, not sitting on a ridge, albeit in bushes, staring down at it. The screams of horses and men and the clang of steel on steel drifted up to them all too clearly.
"So what do we do?" the oldest, deepest-voiced one asked. Thrayl was seldom at a loss for what to do next, but this was one of those rare occasions. "Go back to Lord Tharlark and tell him all Galath is risen in war? Or that the two we were sent to find must have been captured or slain? Or go not back at all? Or go on into this?"
"I'm not lying to Tharlark," small and sly Carandrur put in, his whining voice sounding affronted, almost bitter.
The third Vengeful, a coffee-colored man with a row of small, simple earrings riding each of his ears, shrugged. "Well, I'm not getting myself killed because Tharlark wants to collect heads of folk he's never even met, who passed through Arvale and were gone out of our lives where we should safely leave them." The fourth Vengeful, a darker, taller man, nodded silently.
"Dombur, I don't recall the lord asking your opinion of his commands," Carandrur snapped. "Nor you, Pheldur, if you stand with Dom."
"Carandrur, I don't recall the lord making you any sort of commander over us," Dombur replied flatly. "Nor did I tell Lord Tharlark I'd do as he directed. Both you and he seem to forget I'm not of Arvale; nor is Pheldur, here. He seems forgetful indeed to me, Tharlark does, as he's obviously forgotten something else, too: that the Vengeful are not his to order about as his personal servants."
"Aye," Pheldur rumbled. "I haven't the hips, nor the breastworks, come to that, to be one of his 'personal servants.' I'm more the simple 'wizard-hating, get on with my life, slay all magic-dabblers when I find them' sort. Let strutting lords hire, train, and pay their own skulk-swords, if it's slayings they want done of travelers who eluded them and might, or might not, have magic."
"Are you two mad?" Carandrur hissed. "Have you forgotten how many Arbren the two we're hunting slew, back in Arbridge?"
"Friend Carandrur," Thrayl snapped, "I don't count Snakefaces or Dark Helms as proper folk of Arvale. Now, how would things be if you were abed in an inn with your woman, and in the dark of the night men with blades burst in to slice you up, and you happened to be awake and have your own sword to hand? Are you telling me you'd not defend yourself, nor hotly proclaim your perfect right to do so, if you survived? Hey?"
Carandrur grimaced, then shook his head and spat, "I obey my Lord of Arvale, as any loyal Arbren should. If he is mistaken, then he is mistaken; it's not my place to pause and ponder if he is or not."
"Oh?" Thrayl folded his arms across his chest. "Lord Tharlark demanded that a wingless Aumrarr and a wizard who'd passed through his lands, and were clean gone, be hunted and slain outside our borders, and their heads brought back to him. Well enough: he is my lord, and I'll obey. Yet what if I find this Aumrarr and the man with her isn't a wizard at all, what then? And since when do thinking folk want to slay Aumrarr, who do good for all, albeit in a way that often rubs lords a-wrong? Are we to murder passing innocents, because my Lord Tharlark's bloodlust is up and he feels the need to count another wizard in his tally? Or because he's angry that two folk slipped through his fingers, and feels the need to show Arbren he's in firm charge of all that befalls in the vale, and will hunt beyond our borders what he missed seeing when they were standing under his hand? And what if word gets around to more way-merchants, of how Arvale will hunt down any of them that Arvale's lord gets to thinking might be a wizard? How many merchants will come into our vale at all, then?"
Carandrur's face darkened, and he folded his arms across his chest in exaggerated mockery of what Thrayl had done. "I didn't come here to the blundering edge of a battle, Thrayl, to bandy words with you."
"Well, now, think on those words you've just said a moment, Carandrur. That's just it; we're sitting on the edge of a great fray, and find this end of Galath, at least, roused to arms and rushing about killing each other with right bright enthusiasm! What boots it if our hunt for two folk we only think came this way, remember, rouses one of these warbands below to hack us to the ground and ride in anger right up into our little vale—defended only by Tharlark's sharp tongue and a handful of guards, mind—and lay waste to all Arvale, end to end, because we dared stride into Galath to hunt and slay?"
Thrayl sat back and added quietly, "Just think about it a little more, Carandrur. That's all
I
'm asking. While we still have our heads on our shoulders to do some thinking with."
By the time
Deldragon's war-horns blew a triumphal flourish, Lord Darl Tindror had led his wizard and his two guests down to the towering front doors of Wrathgard, and ordered them flung wide.
Some of his men gave him grim looks, but hastened to obey, dragging out the huge beams that barred and braced the doors against rams, and thrusting the huge doors open, the ponderous arches groaning deeply as they were moved.
Tindror sheathed his sword and strode to stand where the two doors had met. His timing was perfect; Deldragon's knights had cleared the dead from before the doors and formed two rows, astride head-tossing horses, to give the velduke's bodyguard an avenue to ride along, forward to Wrathgard with Velduke Deldragon himself shielded from attack behind them.
The bodyguard, four stout-armored knights twice the height of some of their fellows, rode right up to Tindror and then parted, turning aside with cold, alert gazes, to leave the bearded baron standing staring up at a fair-haired, familiar figure in dazzling enspelled armor, mounted on a magnificent horse covered in mail and barding-plate.
From his flaxen mustache to his piercing ice-blue eyes, Velduke Darendarr Deldragon might have been a shining hero straight off the cover of one of Holdoncorp's game boxes. Bareheaded, he waved a gleaming gauntleted hand at the baron and called, "Darl! I hope you don't mind this intrusion. I felt a hunger to hunt Murlstag, and the spoor led me here!"
"Murlstags are bad at this time of year," Tindror observed, smiling. "I thank you for this and stand in your debt."
"Not at all, not at all. Murlstag fled, I'm afraid. My men are chasing him, but running is something he's very good at, and lorn came down like a cloud as he got near the Spires. He may make it home to Morngard yet."
"Wrathgard yet stands, and I have you to thank for that," Tindror said quietly. "Will you come in?"
"Alas, but I cannot stay. A certain wizard watches Bowrock, and means to do mischief whenever I am away from home."
"You have much to do with wizards?"
"As little as I can, friend Tindror. As little as I can. I have no love for the thought of ending up dancing to any spell-tune, if you take my meaning."
"So you smelled Murlstag in the air?"
Deldragon grinned. "No, nor used magic either. I have spies in that boar's wallow, and they have ways of signaling me swiftly. When I saw he'd gone to war, it fell to a simple matter of taking to horse and following him."
He looked up at the walls and towers of Wrathgard, drew his snorting horse nearer, and said more quietly, "Darl, to these eyes it looks as if Wrathgard is breached, and your healthy armsmen are now... but a handful. Need you sanctuary, at Bowrock?"
Lord Tindror's chin lifted. "Thank you, Darendarr, but no. I'll bide on my own lands, defend my own, and take my chances."
His voice was curt, but he held out his hand as if pleading, and added, "Yet I have two guests I can no longer give fitting shelter to; guests a wizard watching from afar might well send a stag to fetch. They could use your sanctuary."
He turned and pointed to Taeauna and Rod. The Aumrarr gave Deldragon a solemn nod, so Rod did the same, and endured a moment of feeling as if he was being skewered to the heart on a lance of ice-blue eyes before the velduke smiled and nodded.
"I extend my offer to you both, if you are minded to ride with me to Bowrock. Begging the pardon of my Lord Tindror for saying so, there's no finer castle in the land."
"I should be honored," Taeauna said loudly, "just as I was deeply honored by Lord Tindror's hospitality, aid, and friendship." She looked at Rod, and said, "I speak also for my traveling companion, Rodrell, whose wits have been spell-twisted. There are things he can't remember, and others he can't utter. He is on a death-quest, and can neither say nor remember the place he seeks. We Aumrarr owe a blood-debt to him, wherefore I am guiding him."
Deldragon's brows lifted. "Ah. Entertaining guests, I see. Be welcome in my home, provided, of course, we get there. Once the very rock of peace, justice, and order, Galath has become a rather more interesting place."
Without turning his head, he raised a voice a trifle and called, "Pari?"
"Lord Velduke?"
"How many Murlan horses can be ridden?"
"We have ten-and-nine, lord."
"Provide our two guests with one apiece, keep two as remounts, and give the rest unto Lord Tindror, in payment for disturbing his tillage."
He looked down at the baron, who nodded and said, "Deldragon, you are a decent man."
"Galath demands, Darl. Galath demands."
The velduke watched horses being brought to Rod and Taeauna, and Deldragon knights assisting them to mount by cupping gauntlets around their boots and through sheer strength lifting them up onto their horses. Deldragon nodded, let his own restive mount trot in a tight circle, and came back to Tindror to murmur, "You're sure you'd not want to feast tonight in Bowrock? Natha would be glad to see you, and Laranna, too!"
Baron Tindror stared up at him. "Tempting. Thanks. I find myself strong enough to stay. Where I belong."
Deldragon inclined his head. "Darl, you're a decent man, too. Fare you well, in the days ahead; they bid fair to test us all." He looked across the churned slopes of dead and dying men and horses, and added, "You've weathered the first test handily. I wonder if there's such a thing as a lorn-slaying spell?"
Tindror shrugged. "There's such a thing as too much magic in a kingdom, that much I know."
Deldragon shook his head, watching servants hasten out of Wrathgard to hand his two new guests each a small, half-full laedre. "Too much magic? That's like saying 'too much boar' or 'too many knives.' 'Tis not the magic... 'Tis those who wield it; their weakness, that they get so seduced by power as to use it for their every whim. But this is converse for a fairer day, another time." He turned his head and cried, "We ride!"
"We ride!" the Deldragon knights roared in chorus, and set about turning their mounts in thunderous unison.
Deldragon nodded to Tindror, raised his open hand in salute, and said to Rod and Taeauna, "Guests, will you ride with me?"
"Bright Lord of Galath, we will," the wingless Aumrarr replied, framing her words in the tones and serene dignity of a noble lady of long years and high standing.
The velduke flashed his teeth at her in a delighted smile. "I believe I'm going to enjoy this ride home even more than usual."
Taeauna inclined her head to him, and turned to raise her hand in salute to Baron Tindror, who was still standing with his arms folded, in the open doorway of Wrathgard. He lifted his hand in response, face carefully expressionless.
Aside from Taeauna, who was watching for it, Rod was the only person who saw Tindror's lips move, soundlessly framing the words, "I love you."
Then Wrathgard and its bearded baron were behind them, Deldragon knights closing in around them in a jingling, clottering forest of trotting riders.
The velduke leaned close to Taeauna and said, "A good man; one of the few. You have just seen the pride and folly of Galath. If we were all a bit less noble and high-minded, and a bit more surly and... and..."
"Pragmatic," Rod murmured, earning himself a startled look from Deldragon, and then a fierce nod.
"Come," the velduke cried then to the knights all around, spurring his horse into a canter. "Ride in earnest! Lances up! 'Tis a long ride to Bowrock!"