'Put it over your shoulders like a cloak,' Taeauna replied, settling a fur around herself and whirling a second atop it.
Rod shrugged his fur on. It was very heavy.
'Tay, how am I supposed to fight, with this-'
'Just shrug it off, lord, right away, if you have to use your sword,' Taeauna replied, her tone also telling him to stop playing the idiot.
'Yes, but what am I wearing it for?'
'To keep warm. The cellars will be cold, too cold to sleep comfortably without it.'
'The cellars?'
The Aumrarr whirled impatiently to glare at Rod, their noses almost touching, and thrust both laedlen into his hands. Collectively, they were heavy, too.
'Lord Archwizard,' she said flatly, 'as much as I'd love to debate each and every breath we both take with you, as the days pass around us, we'd best get out of these rooms where many folk may know we were housed, and get into hiding. If the keep is full of warring men, the cellars will be the best place to hide. So come with me, try to stop asking questions, and start looking for lanterns or torches as we go.'
Rod nodded. 'Yes, Tay.'
'And stop calling me… Oh, never mind.'
'Yes, Tay.'
Sword drawn, she ducked gracefully past him, their hips brushing for the briefest of instants, heading for gloomy side-chambers many of the servants had come out of, upon their arrival.
'What're you looking for?'
'Back ways in and out of here,' Taeauna said curtly. 'Stay close behind me, keep your sword sheathed until I tell you otherwise, and try to shut up. Lord.'
Rod obeyed, quelling a sudden urge to chuckle at her last word. Ah, such respect he was now getting. Just keep quiet and carry the sacks, dolt.
Taeauna found three back ways, all of them concealed by sliding panels behind tapestries. She opened each one a trifle and listened intently to the darkness beyond, closed two of them, and then beckoned Rod through the remaining opening behind her.
The man who'd thought he'd created Falconfar followed her, and found himself in pitch darkness, with cold stone walls close by on either side of him. Taeauna was just ahead and was moving away from him; he hurried to follow.
The second time he ran into her, the Aumrarr captured his hand with her own in the darkness, guided it to her belt, and murmured, 'Feel your way along to where the belt crosses my spine… there! Now hold on, right there. If I stop, kindly have the basic wits to stop, too.'
The sounds of hard-raging battle were growing louder, everywhere around them, but they seemed to be alone in the narrow passage, and the only sounds they could hear ahead seemed to be the pounding of many boots, of men rushing past them from left to right. The Aumrarr seemed in no hurry to get to that cross-passage, wherever it was; she kept stopping and feeling around, with Rod feeling increasingly like a small boy playing at being a train, as she towed him this way and that in the darkness.
'How can you-?'
'I can't,' she hissed. 'So I must feel. Whenever we come to where another passage joins ours. Now hush.'
They went on, Taeauna trailing her fingertips along one wall, until the sounds of running men seemed very close. Then the Aumrarr stopped, and Rod could feel her reaching, this way and that, tracing the panel at the end of their passage with her fingertips. She seemed to find something, and went still until the running men seemed fewer. When the sound of boots died away altogether, Taeauna thrust gently at the panel, sliding it an inch or so open. Then she stopped, leaning on her sword as if it were a walking stick, head drawn back from the door at an angle, and went still, obviously watching and listening.
Rod carefully moved over to the darkness in the lee of the rest of the panel so he wouldn't be seen; the cross-passage was only dimly lit, but seemed very bright compared to what they'd been groping in. He also let the laedlen gently down to rest on the floor but kept hold of them; carried together in one hand, they were heavy and feeling steadily heavier.
Soon the sounds of more hurrying, approaching boots could be heard, and two armored warriors rushed past. Then another, and a trio.
Taeauna turned, reached for Rod's chin, took hold of it and turned his head so she could whisper in his ear, 'Dark Helms, all of them. Coming up from the cellars. Our duty is clear.' He felt like a small boy being firmly handled by a disapproving teacher.
'It is?' Rod's mutter was lost in the sounds of more boots; the Aumrarr sighed.
'Yes. We must get down to the keep's well and guard it. They'll try to poison it, to doom all Bowrock, but not yet. Not when there's a chance they can vanquish all, and seize Deldragon's seat. When all of Bowrock rises to arms against them, and they are forced back, and know they must lose, then we must be ready, and cleave to our duty.'
'And defend the well, the two of us, against most of an army?' Rod's incredulity made his whisper much louder than he'd intended it to be. 'Christ! Is my time here going to be one long series of fights, chases, and running and hiding?'
'Welcome to Falconfar,' was her dry rejoinder.
Lantern light glimmered in the distance. 'Who's that?' a deep voice challenged out of the darkness.
'Nyghtshield,' the one-eyed baron called back. 'Who are you?'
'Lionhelm. Duthcrown, Snowlance, and Pethmur are with me. Welcome to Galathgard.'
That last sentence had been decidedly sarcastic, which was a long stride in daring beyond what any noble of Galath had made so loudly at court before. Whether His Majesty was englamored or just sinking into madness, levity had long since ceased to be safe in Galathgard.
So had tarrying there a breath too long, after royal dismissal. Wherefore Galathgard's great halls were now deserted. Not to mention cold, dark, and echoing. They stank of mold and animal leavings. Two gigantic open archways beyond where Baron Nyghtshield stood now was the throne hall, the largest and grandest chamber in all Galath, and if there had been a single lamp lit in it, or fires in its hearths, he would have been able to see and feel it long since.
He strode toward the lantern, and the circle of faces around it. Great lords of the realm, all.
'Huh,' he said aloud, as he approached them. 'It feels more like we're visiting a tomb than the Court of Galath. Where are all the courtiers? The servants? The bustle, the waiting feast, the errand-riders hastening in and out?'
He knew the answers, of course. They all knew the answers.
The courtiers were all dead, or long since fled. Hungry beasts prowled the halls, Dark Helms dwelt in armed camps in the outlying wings and towers, and the king walked alone.
Mad as a drool-wits.
'Speak not so freely,' Arduke Halath Lionhelm replied warningly, his handsome, hawk-eyed face stern. 'Galathgard is not so deserted as it seems in these few halls. You'll find fresh blood in many corners; the Helms were probably set to slaying or driving out the monsters, to empty the main rooms for our arrival.'
'Grand and grander,' Nyghtshield muttered, finding himself suddenly more than impatient with the ordering of Galath by the Mad King. He looked around the ring of noble faces with his surviving eye, and nodded politely to everyone, seeing mistrust and weariness to match his own in every gaze, and outright dislike in some.
There were nine faces in all; while he'd been walking to Lionhelm's lantern from one direction, it seemed other lords had been arriving from other rooms. Lionhelm was the only arduke, but there were three marquels: Blackraven, who was humming to himself as usual, Duthcrown, and gleaming-monocled Mountblade; two klarls, Dunshar and Snowlance; and three barons, loud and fat Chainamund, yellow-eyed Murlstag, and stone-faced Pethmur.
Dunshar, a cruel, burly man Nyghtshield had never liked, was glaring at him, as were the barons. Young but white-haired Duthcrown was looking sourly at everyone.
The glimmer of a bobbing lantern shone into the gloom from a side-arch, out of the Hall of Lions. It was
