TAERVELLAR OF THE of the Talons stood under an unlit torch, his back to the wall, wearing an unlovely smile. Magical flames had sprung into being out of nowhere into his hands, and he was almost casual in blasting down every noble or knight, or armsman who got too close to the throne.
Pillars of fire sprouted from the stones, men shrieking as they died, until there were no more.
"We will have order," King Brorsavar said calmly. Those who shouted defiance of those words were Taervellar's next targets.
Greasy smoke drifted away down the throne room in the uneasy silence.
For now, at least, order had been achieved.
"The rightful King of Galath welcomes his loyal nobles to this, his first Great Court," Marquel Windstrike announced.
King Brorsavar stood up, smiled down at the crowd in the room— which was growing again, as late arrivals came hesitantly in—and told them, "I don't expect to survive this gathering, my lords of Galath. Yet we have much to celebrate, whatever befalls. Our realm has been cleansed of many lorn and Dark Helms, and—"
"Now!" a noble shouted, and magics were unleashed from all over the chamber. Not spells, but the stored powers of ring, wand and helm.
The magics were sent not at the king, but at Taervellar, who struggled to keep his feet in the jaws of a growing conflagration that raged savagely around him, howling and tightening.
Suddenly, in the roaring heart of the rending magic, he fell. With nothing to strike at, the magics that had killed him whirled outwards, lashing the knights and armsmen guarding the throne.
A door beside the throne opened, stone grating loudly, and an unwilling servant was thrust out. Marquel Windstrike's sword was in the man's heart in an instant—leaving him defenseless against Belard Tesmer, who thrust his blade over the dying servant's shoulder and into Windstrike's mouth before he could even shout a warning.
"Now," Talyss Tesmer said, voice triumphant—and Belard hurled both dying servant and marquel aside, to race past the throne and hack at the nearest knights.
In his wake came Klarl Annusk Dunshar, charging the throne with daggers ready in both hands. King Brorsavar had just time to draw his own knife before Dunshar's blades sank deep into him.
Brorsavar reeled, and Belard Tesmer took time from slaughtering knights to lash out backhanded at the king, breaking the royal neck and driving the dying man forward into Dunshar's unwilling embrace.
"For... for Galath," the old king struggled to say, through welling blood. And died.
Nobles all over the room were sprinting for the throne, hacking at everyone in their way.
Brorsavar's guards went down quickly, and wild slaughter raged across the throne room once more, the nobles protecting themselves and settling grudges in the melee.
Garfist Gulkoun came out on a low balcony with Isk and the two Aumrarr, and shouted, "'Tis Galath, all right. Conducting their lords' business very much as usual."
TAEAUNA WAS STRONGER than ever. Rod struggled vainly in her grasp, raging for all he was worth but unable to get free of her or move anywhere.
"I've got to get out there!" he shouted at her, trying to break free of her and get out on the balcony. "They're all killing each other! In another ten-twenty minutes, there won't be any lords of Galath!"
"And if you run out there," Taeauna snarled at him, shoving him away from the balcony, "in a lot less time than that there'll be no more Rod Everlar!"
"Tay, I've got to do something! I just can't—"
Taeauna shook him.
"Listen to me!" she hissed. "You can do something that will help Galath—help Falconfar—greatly. You can get back into one of these rooms here and sit down and stare at the wall, while I stand guard over you, and gather your will and Shape again! That's what you do, Rod Everlar! That's how you made Falconfar great, and that's how you can save it now!"
"But—but Shape what?"
"Just quell all magic in yon throne room, so no wizard can cast anything!" Taeauna hissed at him. "Just that! Do it!"
Rod nodded. "Right," he said. "I will. Lead me."
"THERE! " JUSKRA SNAPPED, pointing past Garfist's shoulder. "There's Deldragon! Over there, across from the throne—see? Get to him! We must protect him!"
"Us? Protect him?" Gar shouted, staring at her. "Look at him! Just how do y'see someone like that needing our protection?"
Velduke Deldragon was hacking his way across the hall like a man possessed, ignoring challenges and shrugging off thrown weapons. He was making for the throne.
The throne and the steps around it had become slick with fresh blood; even the Tesmers winced at the affray and ducked back through their secret door, vanishing. The moment Klarl Dunshar saw their departure, he turned and sprinted the other way, abandoning crown and throne in his desperate need to get away.
Deldragon abruptly changed direction in the fray, and started hewing himself a path down the hall rather than toward the throne. It became clear to the four watchers on the balcony that the velduke wasn't after the crown or the throne.
He was after Dunshar, the slayer of his king.
"MAGIC," TAEAUNA MURMURED, "looks like a steady fire, shot through with lightning. A blue-white glow, when raw; other hues when spells make it so. Keep to the blue-white. You want it to be extinguished, to go dark. Shape it thus, Lord Archwizard. Shape it so, Rod."
Eyes closed, lying on a cold stone floor, Rod saw glorious blue- white in his mind—and did his best to kill it.
Melting it away from Galathgard was easy, but thrusting its destruction outwards was harder. Much harder. He couldn't do it, he... Wait. Malraun had done this, once, when linked to Rod's mind, and—yes. Yes! It was like shattering ice, so it could be shoved back and aside.
And this, now, this casting that Rambaerakh had done a time or two; if he could Shape the same results...
He could. Well, then, all men's ties to magic could be burned away. Like this. Things of magic would survive, until broken or worn out, but no spell would work, ever again, once his work was done.
Not that it would be easy. It hurt—God, it hurt!—but he was doing it. Someday he might want to bring it back, but not if there would be other Dooms.
No more Lorontars.
Only Rod Everlar, the greatest Doom of all. Because he'd taken all magic away.
The pain. Perhaps burning his own life to do it...
Well, he wasn't going to stop. Not now, not after all this, after so many dead.
Oh, but it hurt.
"KINGSLAYER!" DELDRAGON ROARED, hacking aside a screaming knight, and thrusting his dagger at an armsman, who fled before him—and suddenly there was no one between the velduke and the fleeing klarl.
"No!" Dunshar cried, finding his way blocked by men fighting among themselves. "No! I—I didn't mean to do it! They made me do it, the Lady Tesmer and her—"
"I saw you go for the king," Deldragon said coldly, a sweep of his sword striking Dunshar's dagger away and taking most of a finger with it, "and I saw your daggers take his life. You slew him, Annusk Dunshar!"
"And for that crime..." Garfist Gulkoun murmured eagerly, leaning well out over the balcony rail to watch.
Dunshar turned and tried to flee again, babbling incoherently, then shrieking as Deldragon's sword caught him in one shoulder, spinning him around, and slapped his cheek hard when he tried to turn again.
They were nose to nose again, and Deldragon's face was terrible.
Dunshar's was white and drenched with sweat and trembling. "Don't kill me! Don't—I'll do anything! Anything! I'll—I'll—"
"A song I've heard too many a time before," Deldragon said coldly, swinging his sword twice.
Dunshar toppled silently, head almost severed. A strange lull occurred in the battle, and Velduke Deldragon found himself standing over the man he'd slain, stared at by men all around.
"Dunshar killed Brorsavar," a lordrake cried, "and he just slew Dunshar. So he's the king—get him! Get him, and the crown is ours!"
"'Ours?'" Dauntra asked. "Just how big is this crown, anyway?"
One or two men just beneath the balcony chuckled at that— but everyone else was surging forward, shouting, swords rising against the man who stood alone.
Deldragon shook his head in disgust, and ran to meet the nobles. Best take down the worst of them, if today I must die...
"Enough of this," Dauntra said suddenly, swinging herself over the balcony rail. "Are you with me?"
"Aye!" Garfist roared, shaking his fist—and toppling over the rail to crash down atop a baron, flattening the man to the ground and causing two more men to stagger, as Deldragon's blade cut down a corrupt lordrake.
Juskra plucked up Iskarra with one hand and dropped her lightly to the ground behind Deldragon—where the bone-thin woman found herself staring into the eyes of a dozen onrushing armsmen.
Nine: Juskra swooped, cutting throats as she came, and landed hard on the rearmost man, stabbing him.
All four were down amid the blood and the dead now, hacking and hewing, guarding Deldragon's back and flanks.
"Aumrarr!" someone shouted. "The wingbitches are among us!"
"Pah! A handful! Hew them down! Hew them all down!"
Slapping at their knights and armsmen with the flats of their swords, the few surviving nobles urged their men forward. None of them had ever been so close to the throne before; just a few more deaths might land them on it! Just a few—
"For Deldragon! For Galath!" someone roared from beyond the closing ring, slashing a noble's neck and sending him reeling. "King Deldragon, for Galath!"
It was Baron Tindror, one weary, bloodied armsman grinning at his side, and even before the lords could turn to face him, two of them lay dying underfoot, and the ring was broken.
"Wizards? Where the glork are our wizards?" one of them cursed. He cast about and saw a man in robes, far off across the chamber, staring down at his empty hands in disbelief—before Deldragon's sword silenced his question forever.
There were only a few nobles left fighting, now, a knot of desperate men. The little magics they'd trusted to see them out of a tight spot were failing them, now; doom was upon them. Leaving them just one satisfaction—
An Aumrarr in their midst, this one without scars, whose beauty had distracted many an armsman just long enough for him to take a wound...
Could not possibly fend off all their blades. Even as she sent a knight reeling back, six swords slid into her.
"Die, wingbitch!"
"Sister!" Dauntra screamed and sobbed, eyes bright.
"No!" Juskra howled, bounding into the air and clapping her wings to buffet men backwards in all directions. "No!"
Her sword felled two nobles as if they'd been dry firewood, and she flung it down to cradle Dauntra.
"Sister..." Dauntra gasped.
And died.
"No!" Juskra howled. "No!"
Arms around Dauntra, she sprang into the air—and she was gone, up and out of the throne room.
MAERA KNEW WHERE she was heading now.
The flat, thrusting stone in the forest.
There it was, just a glade ahead. The Tesmer knights following her no longer mattered; her parents' anger no longer mattered, either. Lorontar was strong within her, and he would—he would—
The power within her suddenly roiled and faded, sending her staggering. The grim knights behind her stopped and drew their swords, approaching warily.
Bent over and helpless, Maera stared at them. "No!" she spat. "Not now! This can't—no!"
LADY TESMER TURNED to her husband, horror in her face. "Do you—Irrance, do you feel it?"
"I do," Lord Tesmer said grimly. And sighed. "I guess it's back to swords, then. And I'm getting no younger."
LORD LUTHLARL RAISED one eyebrow. He'd never liked wizards much, and this one was no exception. The man's fee was staggeringly high, and now he was standing in Dlarmarr's best garden with both hands raised theatrically—and nothing at all was happening.
"Is there," he asked silkily, "a problem?"
"The spell," the wizard mumbled, looking sick. "It just... won't work."
Lord Luthtarl smiled. The gesture he made to his bodyguard was almost leisurely.
Perhaps wizards made good fertilizer.
"YOU FAILED MY lord!" the knight said angrily. "And now he's dead. You'll not see one coin of your fee!"
The wizard smiled. "Oh, no? While all of you go on butchering each other here in this Falcon-forsaken castle, I'll just whisk myself back to your arduke's bedchamber and take that coffer of gems he's so proud of. Along with, perhaps, that lush-bosomed wife of his, too!"
The knight snarled, sword grating out of its scabbard.
The wizard sneered, raised one hand, and murmured something.
Then, with a look of astonishment, tried it again.