Falconfar 03-Falconfar (47 page)

Irked and well aware that she had another client, Cherry roamed oh-so-gently with her fingers, licked her way clear of what had been in her mouth, and turned to the other zipper.

Where her other hand, discovered that the shorter guy was carrying no less than six wallets.

She hesitated, just for a moment. What...?

Above the table, Mori felt the warm mouth on him go slack for a moment as its owner stiffened.

She's decided there's something wrong with us. Really wrong.

He tapped Tethtyn's hand with his own, then pointed downwards with his thumb. Tethtyn shrugged.

Mori nodded, flexed his hands, and cast a spell as quietly as he could, muttering the incantation and performing the gestures with exaggerated precision.

Under the table, Very Cherry stiffened again—as the world went away. Forever.

Mori felt her mouth and hand begin their work again, this time repetitively, exactly duplicating their last actions, over and over. Good; her mind was burnt out, and she'd be telling no one what she'd seen and guessed.

The endless repetition started to hurt, so Mori calmly pushed her away. That left her fingers discomfiting Tethtyn, so he thrust at her shoulder, backing her out from under the table.

Where she went on making love endlessly to empty air, staring at nothing with eyes the color of smoke.

The two men went on conferring as if nothing at all had occurred.

"Yet with all that," Tethtyn was saying, "I like this Earth. A huge, wide kingdom with, as far as I can tell, no wizards in it."

"Precious few swords, too," Mori sniffed. "No shortage of pompous fools, though."

"Which is precisely why we can flourish here. All we have to learn how to do is blend in enough to pass unnoticed. Then we can work whatever mischief we desire!"

Both excited now as they warmed to plans of mischief, neither of them had realized that Lorontar had stirred in their minds, firmly bidding them stay in the strange kingdom of Earth.

"DARL," TAEAUNA SAID fondly, embracing the blood-spattered, sweating Baron Tindror and kissing him, "'tis good to see you again!"

"I feel the same, Lady," he replied. "Still finding trouble at every stride, I see!"

Taeauna chuckled. "It seems to follow the Lord Archwizard here, and I'm... still responsible for him."

Tindror gave Rod a respectful nod. "My lord, I wish you continued health."

"Yeah," Rod said, a little shakily. "Me too."

"Walking with us is likely to get you killed," Taeauna said warningly to the baron, who grinned ruefully.

"Lady Taeauna, just having a title and being here in Galathgard is likely to get me killed! But aye, now that Murlstag's dead— taking some good men of mine with him, glork him—I think it best if I more or less hide, out yonder in the ruins, until the Great Court is well underway. I take it you have other plans?"

Taeauna smiled, clapped him on the back, and stepped away from him. "We do indeed. Fare you well, good Lord Baron. Galath needs more like you."

Tindror bowed his head again. "Lady, you flatter me, but 'tis good to hear."

They saluted each other with their swords, and Taeauna turned and firmly led Rod away. Out a door in another direction from the passage where the coach had passed, up a short flight of stairs, along a dark, mildewy passage, around a corner, and through another door.

"Anyone following?" she asked Rod.

"I—I don't think so," he replied.

"I don't, either," she agreed encouragingly, towing him confidently across a dark room.

"T-Tay," Rod asked her hesitantly, as he trotted on into the darkness, barely able to keep up with the Aumrarr, "where are we going?"

"We're heading for a secret passage that should enable us to get close behind the throne. There we can watch and listen in hiding, to what bids fair to be—ah! Here."

Taeauna had found what she was groping for, in the dark. She pushed on a block of stone, hard, and Rod heard the faintest grating sounds, and felt a slight breeze spring up around his ankles.

"Keep hold of me," Taeauna murmured in Rod's ear, then stepped to the left. Rod kept hold of her hand, and found his left shoulder brushing a stone wall. She was leading him along it. down a passage they could feel more than see.

A long way, straight and level, before it angled to the right. Rod stumbled once or twice, and Taeauna squeezed his hand sharply each time in what he took to be a signal to be more careful and quiet. Rod tried. They came to a sudden stop, Taeauna hissing a curse.

"Stand still," she told him, and Rod felt and heard her moving around just in front of him.

"Walled up," she muttered. "Recently."

"A dead end?" Rod asked.

"Dead for some, certainly," a cold, unfamiliar voice said from behind him.

Light flared, as lanterns were unhooded. Four—no, five—of them, held by knights in splendid matching armor. Six in all, with drawn swords and smiling unpleasantly. Two richly dressed men were with them, unarmored but for codpieces and breastplates: nobles, without a doubt. Rod peered at the blazons on their chests.

The smiling one was Arduke Mordrimmar Larkhelm, and by the badges they wore, the knights belonged to him. The younger man, who looked decidedly unhappy to be there, was Baron Arundur Tathgallant.

They were advancing slowly and carefully, taking care to keep their swords to the fore and the lanterns raised. As they closed to perhaps four strides away, the arduke took the baron by the elbow and steered him firmly to the forefront.

"I'm very much afraid, Lady Aumrarr," Larkhelm said to Taeauna, "that witnesses are something we just can't afford. Wherefore your life is forfeit. Tathgallant, kill her."

"No," Tathgallant replied simply.

Larkhelm unhesitatingly ran him through from behind, leaning hard on his slim sword. The baron gasped, staring wild-eyed at Rod and Taeauna, and toppled over.

The arduke stood smirking, blood running off his sword. He shrugged, sighed theatrically, and told his knights, "I guess I'll just have to murder her myself."

"You're welcome to try," Taeauna replied, her cold smile matching his own. She glided forward to meet him, sword in hand.

THE CLASH AND clang of arms in the hall was deafening. Everyone was fighting everyone, armored men crushed together shoulder-to-shoulder in the hall, almost too packed to fall when they were slain.

Four pairs of eyes gazed down from the balcony. The bone- thin woman now snuggled against Garfist Gulkoun's shoulder murmured warningly, "We could be burned alive up here if some fool sets fire to the castle—and someone always does, when thrones are toppled."

"Then come," Juskra said to them. "With me. Now. Back this way."

They obeyed, scuttling off the balcony bent low and following the Aumrarr in haste back through lightless and crumbling passages, out into bird-fouled rooms where the rafters stood open to the sky.

"Where exactly are we heading?" Garfist growled.

"Just one room farther," the battle-scarred Aumrarr told him. "Through this arch, then turn to the right, everyone, to put yon wall at our backs. That should be far enough."

"For what?"

"For talking freely without being overheard—and without some bloodthirsty knight or noble happening along with a lot of friends," Juskra replied.

Gar nodded. "Right. Talk."

"I think we need to agree on what we should do here," Juskra said firmly. "Given yon bloodbath, and no king in sight yet."

"I don't think he's coming," Garfist growled. "7 think he's decided to lure all the nobles here to Galathgard to cut each other's throats, so he only has to deal with survivors, after it's all done."

"No," Dauntra disagreed, "that's what you'd do. I've met Brorsavar. He'll be here, all right, even though he knows he's coming to his death. And yes, with all those swords and bowmen and wizards, someone will get him."

Juskra nodded. "I read things unfolding that way, too. Wherefore I hope we can resolve some things, here and now, about what we're going to try to do."

Iskarra shrugged. "Fine. As Gar said, talk."

"Well, I think we should help hasten the deaths of the most ambitious and ruthless nobles—the ones we don't want to ever see on any throne, anywhere in Falconfar—before anyone departs Galathgard. More than that, if Brorsavar does fall, I propose that we should try to head off a messy civil war by making perhaps the best of the younger nobles into the new King of Galath."

"Who?" Garfist asked bluntly.

"Velduke Darendarr Deldragon."

"I agree," Iskarra said quickly. "Him I would like to see on Galath's throne."

Garfist nodded. "So, now, tell me one thing: why did ye Aumrarr not just put him on that throne, long ago, an' avoid all this?"

Juskra hesitated, but Dauntra said to her, "Speak, Sister. The time for secrets is past."

The scarred Aumrarr sighed and nodded. "We—we Aumrarr— came to suspect, some time ago, that he'd fallen under the sway of a Doom. Which meant, once encrowned, he'd be as much a tyrant, or waste, as Devaer was. We need only trick him into a swift and simple test, to make sure no one else has taken him over now that the Dooms are all dead."

"Right, I agree—an' we all agree, hey?" Garfist asked briskly. "So let's get ourselves back to that balcony, an' see who's died while we've been away. I don't get to see high-nosed lords slaughtered by the dozens every day, ye know!"

They all hastened back the way they'd come. Under their boots, as they trotted, Galathgard shook more than once, the stones rattling under deeper thunders. The wizards were settling down to work.

LARKHELM'S SNEER HELD, but as Taeauna strode forward, he backed away just as swiftly, his knights parting to let him pass through, and closing in front of him, holding out their lanterns like shields.

Taeauna never slowed.

Swords thrust at her, but she flung herself to the left and chopped backhand at the head of the leftmost knight.

He cursed and swung himself all the way around, barely parrying—and her foot hooked his heel and brought him crashing to the floor, Taeauna ducking past him and thrusting her sword up into the next knight's neck and jaw as she went.

He tried to scream but managed only a gurgle, and staggered, tripping over the fallen knight—who was frantically trying to crawl away—and crashing down atop him.

By then, Taeauna had fenced for a moment with the third knight before driving the point of her blade through his throat. Larkhelm was backing away, calling one of the knights—Torth—to fall back with him.

Rod trotted after Taeauna, slicing his sword through the throat of the first knight, who was struggling to get out from under the weight of his dying fellow. Three down, one retreating, two knights left—who ducked to either side and hacked at Taeauna fiercely.

She cried out in pain as a sword bit into her side, slicing through her leathers, and staggered sideways—but the knights were too eager to follow her and strike her down to really notice Rod, and he flung himself atop the nearest one, bringing him crashing to the floor. Which left the other one turning, startled—so Taeauna could hack at his neck, and send him reeling away, choking on blood and dropping his sword.

Viciously Rod swarmed up the struggling knight, knowing the man was stronger and heavier than he was, and if he got Rod off him and turned over, Falconfar's newest Lord Archwizard would be doomed. He chopped awkwardly at the man's face with his sword, again and again, as if he was dicing onions, and was still at it when Taeauna's sword slid in past his, right into the man's snarling mouth.

An instant later she was gone, swept away by the charging Torth, whose vicious swing took her under her breasts and sliced upwards, flinging her back and away amid a great spray of blood.

Rod heard her sword clatter across the floor as he struggled to his feet, slipping and sliding on blood-drenched armor underfoot, and flung himself on Torth, hard.

He came down on the knight's legs and drove him headlong to the floor, down atop the first two men he and Taeauna had felled. Torth stopped struggling, very suddenly, and collapsed.