Whom Garfist shed like a cloak of tumbling men as he burst out and upwards from beneath all the wallowing, flailing bodies, to lumber away down a thankfully empty passage, gaining speed as he went. The boar carcass, looking a little more ragged and worn, still trailed behind his large and hairy left hand.
No sooner had he vanished into the distant darkness than Iskarra "Vipersides" burst into view out of the passage he'd turned back from, running hard and panting harder.
"Old blundering ox," she gasped, "you'll be the glorking death of me yet!"
The wave of Dark Helms who'd set Garfist to flight were butchering their way enthusiastically through the kitchen staff and the trio of their fellow Dark Helms alike, gleefully hewing a clear path forward. They promptly tried to make Iskarra's breathless observation true, reaching for her with their blades.
She leaped forward into a somersault under those swords, yanking a hairpin out of her hair in mid-tumble, and sprinted off down the passage after Garfist.
The few surviving cooks and scullions, shrieking for all they were worth, pelted after her. A flood of Dark Helms ran after them, slashing and stabbing at the air, and as they caught up to each kitchen, worker in turn, they butchered screaming, sweating flesh, too.
As cook after cook was loudly murdered behind her, Iskarra ran on, hoping the Dark Helms now pursuing her weren't spellguarded against skaekur. If fair fortune was with her for once, she'd not have to find out, but fair fortune so seldom rode escort with her these days that...
Her pessimism was promptly proved well founded. She came to a passage-moot at last, and had to stop to peer wildly, trying to see which of the three diverging ways Garfist had taken.
He'd turned down the last passage she shot a glare along, of course. Looking took just enough time that the foremost Dark Helms pounced before she could get started down that passage, roaring hloodthirstily and hacking at her like woodcutters impatient to split kindling.
Iskarra flung herself at their ankles, tripping one into his fellows. That took two black-armored warriors to the floor and left a third clawing his way free of them, off balance and with sword swinging wildly to try to regain his footing.
Iskarra sprang up from the floor like a leaping frog to crash into his chest with both bony knees and stab his face repeatedly with her hairpin. The Dark Helm went down hard on his back, shouting, and she bounced up from his chest to her feet and sprinted hard down the passage after Garfist with the Helm's shouting dying into slurred gurgles in her wake.
Three or more Dark Helms, by the sounds of running boots, were right on her heels, after her like hounds.
"Gar!" she shouted. "Gar?"
There was a lantern somewhere around a corner to the left, ahead in the passage; its light was spilling out along the walls and ceiling in the distance. Iskarra ran toward it as hard as she could, almost winded now, panting raggedly, wondering if she'd tire enough that they'd catch up to her in the open passage and hack her down from behind, too.
She could hear a lot more boots, running behind her closest pursuers, now. Great. How many Dark Helms does it take to kill one ragged, slightly tipsy, seen-brighter-days woman?
"Gar... fist," she gasped angrily, reeling around a corner. "I sure hope you... went this... way."
Garfist reached one shovel-like hand out of the darkness of a side-passage and swept her past him. Then he put his shoulder against a tall stack of wooden crates where it had been before and waited.
"Stay. Catch yer breath," he muttered. Iskarra reeled against the wall and bent over to gasp in earnest, nodding thankfully. She just needed a moment or two.
Dark Helms came thundering up, not slowing. They were headed for the next side-passage, where the lantern light was coming from.
With a grim smile on his face, Garfist Gulkoon leaned forward, grotesque false breasts bouncing and bobbing, and toppled the crates.
They crashed down on the shoulder of the nearest Dark Helm, smashing him to the floor instantly. The Dark Helm right behind him ran into them with his upper body, lost his racing feet forward out from under himself, fell hard, and got the rest of the crates crashing down on him just as the next Dark Helm ran into him, and the one behind in turn crashed into them all.
Broken-bodied and senseless, the four Dark Helms said nothing at all, and by then, no one was paying them the slightest attention, because the crates had been full of ball bearings that were now flooding out into the passage with a thunder of their own, as a small, sprinting army of Dark Helms ploughed into them, shouted wildly, raising up arms and swords in a vain attempt to keep from falling, and skidded helplessly... everywhere.
"Come on!" Garfist snarled to Iskarra, turning and peeling her off the wall with one great sweep of his arm. "I can scarcely see down here, but there're crates all along both walls, full of all sorts of—"
With a wild shout, a skidding Dark Helm made it around the corner into the passage, fetching up against one wall with a crash. A second Dark Helm struck the wall right beside the first, narrowly missing impaling himself on the first Helm's sword.
Garfist spun around, caught hold of a tall stack of crates, and heaved.
The stack crashed down across the passage with a roar mingled with shrieks of splitting wood as the crates burst open, spilling forth a clanging metallic chaos of hasps and handles and hooks, dark and smelling strongly of oil. The Dark Helms fought for balance among this slithering metal, and the foremost caught hold of the next stack of crates and tried to swing his legs over and past the ironmongery.
He got halfway through his swing before the crate he was clinging to came free of its stack and pulled the stack over in his wake; helplessly he slithered feet-first into the darker passage beyond, that crate slamming into his head.
Garfist was already stepping forward, to almost delicately drive his dagger up under the warrior's helmet, into his foe's throat and up behind the jaw. Ignoring the fountaining blood, the fat ex-procurer grimly twisted his knife in deep before wrenching it forth again.
Iskarra shoved another stack of crates over the already-fallen ones, in a flood of debris that filled the passage chest-high. "We should go," she hissed. "'Twould be a pity if that next passage ran down and cross-connected with this one up yonder, and the Dark Helms just ran around and came at us that way."
"Indeed, Viper," Garfist growled with mock flourishes of dignity. "The same thought had occurred to me."
He hefted the boar carcass in his hand to make sure none of it had torn free in all the tumult, then nodded, bent to wipe his dagger clean on the leather war-harness of the Helm he'd just slain, and started off down the passage. "Isk, are ye... unharmed?"
"Only my pride, Gar. To think these young louts almost ran me down, in all that armor, too. Let's go. And before you ask: somewhere deep, cold, dark and deserted in these cellars, where we can hide for a bit and let these crazed Galathans fight their battles over our heads."
Her brisk stride turned into a trot to keep up with Garfist, before she asked, "Carve me a slice of cold, raw boar to chew as we walk, hey?"
"That's my Viper," Garfist grunted. "Any chance to sink yer teeth into raw meat."
He set to work with his dagger, and then grunted, "Come to think: ye can claim this crawlskin back any time right soon, mind. There's raw meat, if yer jaws need some work."
"Gar," Iskarra said coldly, "that's not amusing. Not at all."
Garfist shrugged. "Killing folk, I'm good at. Making them laugh, less than good."
He strode on for a bit, and then asked, around a mouthful of boar, "These Dark Helms; think ye they were sent here by 'our' wizard, since he vanished from inside the wagon?"
The woman trotting beside him stopped abruptly and put a hand on his arm, her face going pale.
"Oh, steaming dragon shit," Iskarra cursed slowly, staring up into his eyes. "Yes. He came here to open a gate, to bring them through. And he's managed it. This keep could be doomed from within, even before the siege begins!"
Korryk's feeble screams
stopped not long after his struggles. He hung limply from the spheres he was now bonded to, too weak and helpless to do anything else.
The youngest of Arlaghaun's apprentices stood calmly watching the captive warrior shrivel and wither away. From time to time, Yardryk stroked his curly, dirty gold beard, his dark purple eyes thoughtful.
It would not be long now before the insatiable gate took the last of his life-force, and when it was drained, the gate would flicker violently with bloody consequences for creatures caught in it, and then fade out.
And the flow of running Dark Helms and swooping lorn would end, long before the Master desired it to. Which would have grave consequences for Yardryk, even "fresh waiting grave" consequences, one might say.
It was time to find Korryk's replacement.
Turning his back on the gate, the unkempt apprentice stalked away, murmuring a spell over the glass eye cupped in his palm. The glass started to sear his flesh as it liquified, and then, just before the pain would have made him sob and fling it away, shaking his hand to be rid of the agony but not the blisters and later scars, it vanished, and he could scry.
It was as if a curtain was drawn back in his mind, enabling him to see rooms and passages around him at will, spread out in his mind while his eyes saw only darkness and solid stone walls all around.
Yardryk first saw the Master's forces; not so many lorn, now, but Dark Helms beyond counting, streaming forth from the gate, rushing along the largest passages and ascending every stair or ramp they saw. They were like a river, all rushing together, so he looked elsewhere. Were there other folk down in these cellars? Guards on patrol, coming closer, perhaps?
No, nothing like that. A few stray bands of Dark Helms, chasing and slaughtering Bowrock folk, a few cellarers, far away from the sound and the rushing Dark Helms, shifting some kegs and oblivious to the fighting... hold! What were these, much nearer?
A
pair, standing alone, conferring in the darkness. A tryst? One of them small, a boy or a slender woman, the other, huge! Yes, huge and hairy, but breasted like a woman, both of them standing eating something in the darkness.
Never mind what or who they were; that large one should have life-force enough in her or him to feed the gate for a good long time. More than enough time as would be needed to bring through all of the Master's forces, anyway.
Yardryk smiled and stepped forward to hail and command the next few lorn to appear Out of the gate. Five or six Dark Helms, too: force enough to fetch back this new gate-fuel alive.
And more or less unharmed.
Rod Everlar fetched
up against yet another wall, this time bouncing off it more than bruisingly slamming into it. Swallowing a sigh, he ran on.
If this was one of his own fantasy novels, he should—would—now do something bold and heroic, something Falconfar-shattering. Turning his modern real-world knowledge of eclipses or electricity or the tactics of Talleyrand into some dramatic, decisive, witnessed-by-all act that would make Falconaar stop and gasp in awe and then kneel before him.
To live happily ever after, ha ha bloody ha.
In a book, it was all so easy. With a few sentences he could be a god, or a superhero, or the Lord Ha Ha of Falconfar.
Here, all he could think of doing was staying close to Taeauna, keeping his mouth shut, and doing whatever seemed best as this world threw one danger or crisis after another at him.
He hadn't run so much in years as he had these last few days. Or been as frightened. Just staying alive was probably going to be his lone awesome act, if he could manage even that. Not that anybody beyond Rod Everlar would even notice, let alone be awed.
Crazy world.
He found himself fighting for breath again, as Taeauna's shapely behind started to draw farther and farther away from right in front of him.
Crazier writer.
What am I doing here?
"So,"
Garfist rumbled
, "Dark Helms and lorn are all over these cellars. Do we dare try for the kitchens again, with most of the cooks dead and gone, mind, and see if we can get something cooked, and some wine to wash it down with, and a lantern to call our own? Or are we as likely to meet with Bowrock blades, rushing down here to sword everyone they don't recognize as one of their own?"
"Meeting with Bowrock blades is the more likely," Iskarra murmured. "Yet something cooked sounds good about now, and the wine, and I can see that look in your eye, Gar."
"I don't doubt it," the onetime procurer replied. "The kitchens it is, then. Which means we turn—"
Something large and dark came hurtling out of the darkness, flying along the ceiling with its claws outstretched, and smashed into Garfist hard enough to knock him back on his well-padded behind with a startled "Woof!"
Whatever it was struck the passage floor a good way beyond Garfist, and rolled a good way farther before coming to a stop. By which time two more flying things had pounced on Garfist, pinioning his arms.
"Lorn!" Iskarra screamed, drawing her hairpin again and her dagger and knowing they were useless as she did it. The first lorn was loping back to join the two Garfist was now struggling against, and three more were swooping at her.