Arch Wizard

'No, Amaddar, that I do not. You swallow a sigh and seek to stride off, lost in your own impatience. Hear me.'

That tone in his father's voice, even now when it was but an enfeebled, ghostly echo of his lost vigor, brought Amaddar Yelrya to a halt, as still as any statue. He turned around, and looked down into that wasted face with nothing but eager obedience on his own. He had been well taught.

'For years now,' that failing, familiar voice told him, 'Ironthorn's verdant farms and busy gemadars have been ruled uneasily by three rival lords. Lord Burrim Hammerhand is the strongest. He uses the badge of an iron gauntlet-a left-handed gage, mind, upright and open-fingered, on a scarlet field-and rules from Hammerhold, a castle on a crag just north of Irontarl, the market town of Ironthorn. The town stands on the banks of the Thorn River.'

By the greatest of efforts, Amaddar managed to avoid sighing, rolling his eyes, or letting any exasperation at all cross his face. Lions of the morning, he was going to tell it all.

'Just south across that river is Lyraunt Castle. There Lord Magrandar Lyrose rules, lording it over three side-valleys to the southwest. His badge is a pinwheel, like a caltrop, of three steel-gray thorns, joined at the base, on a yellow field. They say the wizard Malraun smiles on House Lyrose.'

Amaddar nodded, struggling to seem interested, trying to look as if any of this was new.

'In the southeast is the valley of Imrush, where Lord Irrance Tesmer rules from his keep, Imtowers. He's the one who used to have all the gems, and buys slaves from every Stormar who'll sell. His badge is a purple diamond on a gray field.'

Amaddar nodded. 'So he I should cultivate,' he murmured, just to show he'd been heeding. 'He'll welcome me.'

'No!' His father's eyes blazed like two golden suns for an instant, ere fading again. 'Stay far from the Tesmer lands, have naught to do with him, and do not, for any reason at all, surrender your real name to any Ironthar!'

Amaddar frowned. 'Why?'

'Tesmer's wife was-probably still is-very beautiful. I… she will remember me. So will her lord, and doubtless seek to close claws on the son, when he can't reach the father.'

Lion, this was new!

Amaddar realized he was gaping, and shut his mouth with an effort.

'Father!' he heard himself say reproachfully, a moment later.

His father's eyes flashed again. 'The gold that reared you to have such pride I earned in season after season of dealing with Lady Telclara Tesmer. We understood each other very well, and when you're older, you'll see better why that leads to… the other.'

'But… Mother…'

'Knew all about it, suggested it before ever I rode all that way north, and hooked the cunning Lady Tesmer and played her like a master, with me the straining fishing-line between. Go ask her if you believe me not, and come back to me wiser.'

His father lifted one wasted, trembling hand long enough to level one long and accusative finger at Amaddar. 'Then perhaps you'll stop fighting down yawns and pretending to listen, and learn enough to keep yourself alive in Ironthorn for a day or two. Perhaps.'

Two Hammerhand knights had been everywhere in the battle, hewing and thrusting and whirling to deal death elsewhere before wounded foes could strike back.

One was tall, and fought with his visor raised. The weathered face that stared sternly out of his helm was one even the youngest knights of Lyrose knew: Syregorn, a laconic, scarred man who had long been one of Lord Hammerhand's most trusted veterans.

The other was one of the Hammerhand rearguard, who'd ridden with visors down. This anonymous knight was faster and more reckless than Syregorn in the fray, darting here and there like a hungry falcon. His sword had laid open the throat of Horondeir Lyrose, and he was now swinging it hard and fast at the last few Lyran knights, as the fray dwindled down into a tight knot of snorting, kicking horses in the trees.

Pelmard Lyrose-now heir of his house-was well away and beyond catching, now, if he didn't fall off and his mount avoided breaking a leg.

In the tight fray he'd left behind, a knight of Lyrose suddenly swerved away from a chance to hew a Hammerhand flank, and spurred out of the hacking, ringing heart of the battle to flee after the Lyrose lordling.

The falcon-swift Hammerhand knight pursued the hurrying Lyran, crouching low and urging his mount to greater haste by dealing stout slaps to its withers with the flat of his blade. Like an arrow he raced away from the dwindling knot of bloodied, sword-swinging knights.

He had almost caught up the fleeing Lyran before that knight heard the drumming of pursuing hooves, turned in his saddle, stared in alarm, and swung his sword wildly.

The racing Hammerhand caught the Lyran blade with the tip of his own and swung his sword in an awkward arc to abet rather than dispute its slash. Overbalanced, the knight of Lyrose was swung right around in his saddle, crying out in pain, and-was impaled for a moment on a tree-bough his terrified horse had already ducked past.

A moment was all the Hammerhand knight needed. His own blade sang down under the edge of the Lyran helm and around as he swept past, drawing a deep and bloody smile across the throat beneath.

Almost beheaded, the knight of Lyrose flopped bonelessly in his saddle, sagging back as his sword tumbled from his dying hand. His body followed it-all but one boot, firmly trapped in its stirrup. The horse raced on through the trees, terrified anew by the ringing, clanging carrion it was now towing.

The Hammerhand knight slowed his snorting, bucking mount and let the Lyran horse flee, turning to follow the trail slowly back to where horses snorted, the smell of blood was strong… and the battle was done.

Syregorn was grimly ordering the bodies of the Lyrose brothers be bound to their horses, and the severed head retrieved. He'd had no need to give orders to his four surviving knights regarding the reverent raising of the dead Dravvan Hammerhand.

'Pelmard?' was all he asked the returning knight, who tore off her helm to watch her dead brother gently laid on his snorting horse, his head wrapped in a Lyran cloak someone was too dead to need any longer.

'Escaped me. Taking with him his father's excuse for raising war.'

She pointed at one of the knights of her house to get his attention, and snapped, 'Find every last Lyran war-quarrel, and the bows! We must discover if they can pass all our iron-wardings, or we'll all be rotting vaugren-meat, and soon!'

'Yes, Lady,' the knight murmured, lowering his eyes from the bright ribbons of tears down the cheeks of the woman who was now the next ruler of Hammerhold. If she somehow lived long enough.

Amteira Hammerhand didn't care if all Falconfar saw her tears.

Dravvan was dead. It was all up to her, now.

Trying to look menacing, Rod slowly drew his sword. As he did, it flashed with a brief, bright white light-and the bracers on his arms winked back at it.

The lorn stiffened, and stopped striding forward.

He stared at it, hefting the sword, trying to look as if he buried the thing in handily nearby lorn every day.

The lorn regarded him as expressionlessly as only lorn can, that mouthless, unchanging skull-face staring back at Rod. Betraying nothing.

God, it was big. Even without that bone-shattering tail, it could probably tear him apart with casual ease. Studying it, close enough to see the little line of breathing and speaking holes under the line of its jaw-well, the chin of its face, even if it lacked a mouth; it certainly looked like the underside of a human jaw-and the two pincers, now slid back inside little sheaths of flesh there, Rod had to fight down a shiver.

Whereupon it sneered at him-he could tell it was sneering, as plainly as anything, though its skull-face remained a frozen mask-sat down, and started eating a hearty meal of Aumrarr. Those pincers slashed and sliced, the flesh that sheathed them rippled and flexed like little gripping hands, and the throat tube with little teeth lining its inside thrust forward obscenely to suck in the blood and meat…