'And the lands of the Velduke Deldragon, who hates the lord of where we are right now, are north of here. So angry wagon merchants wanting to catch us. will receive no help at all.'
The fat man cast a thoughtful look back along the weathered board roof of the wagon, his gaze lingering on the six arrows embedded there.
'North it is, then,' he said, and spat on the aromatic behind of the ox just in front of him.
The ox kept right on plodding, and did not respond.
They'd flown this high before, but this time the air was colder, somehow. The fiercest and most scarred of the four Aumrarr faltered in her flying, turning in her customary position at the fore to hug herself; the others saw that Juskra was shivering.
'Once we've done this,' she said, absently stroking her bandages, 'and shown ourselves to all Galath, what then? With these wings, sisters, we can't exactly hide!'
Dark-armored Lorlarra nodded. 'And I'm in no hurry to lose them as Taeauna did. Think you: a life without wings? Now that would be true doom.'
'We'd best be ready to flee fast and far, then, sisters mine,' Ambrelle warned, her unbound purple-black hair streaming out behind her. 'The wizards vying for rule in Galath haven't shown much mercy to anyone.'
Below them, Galath was a carpet of lush greens, adorned with ribbons of silver-blue water and a brown, wandering spiderweb of cart-roads and lanes. The four Aumrarr had decided to fly high over the realm, seeking armies on the move, and had just soared over its border.
'What's that?' Dauntra snapped, pointing, her usually impish brown eyes sharp with concern. 'Yonder!'
Something was rising from the high, tree-cloaked ridge of Darragh Forest, well ahead of them, in the heart of the kingdom; something like a storm cloud.
Dark, and menacing, and…
'It's coming in our direction,' Ambrelle warned, slowing.
'Lorn!' Lorlarra said suddenly. 'Those are lorn-thousands of them! And they're coming for us!'
Juskra slowed, the better to turn an incredulous face on her sister. 'They can't be! Lorn can't see that well, to hunt us at this distance!'
'They don't have to see,' Dauntra said bitterly, 'when a wizard sees for them, and commands them aloft. Sisters, we must flee!'
'Flee?' Juskra spat incredulously. 'I will not! I've had enough, and more than enough, of fleeing and hiding whilst sisters are slain here, there, and everywhere, and the slayers face no harm nor even blame! I-'
'Will die alone here, in the air, then,' Ambrelle said sadly. 'Torn apart by lorn. To stand with you is to throw our lives away needlessly, achieving nothing, and that avenges or brightens the memory of our dead sisters how?'
'You will all turn back?' Juskra cried, rage making her weep. 'And fly away, craven? All of you?'
'All of us,' Lorlarra replied sadly.
Juskra turned in the air in a whirl of wings. 'I can't believe what I'm hearing. I-'
'No, sister,' Dauntra said sharply, 'you don't want to believe what you're hearing, which is far different. You want to die here, don't you? To go down fighting!'
'I-no! No!
'Yes,' Ambrelle said gently, reaching out for Juskra's arm as her sister burst into a flood of tears that robbed her of coherence. 'Come, sister.'
The cloud of lorn was much nearer, now, stretching broad and dark across the sky.
Dauntra swooped in under Juskra's wings, on the other side from Ambrelle, and took Juskra's other arm. 'Come,' she added, rolling over on her side to find air enough to beat her wings without getting tangled in Juskra's broad, resisting ones.
'Sisters,' Lorlarra said urgently, 'we must away. They're coming so fast.'
'Juskra,' Ambrelle said firmly, 'don't throw your life away just yet. Sacrifice yourself only if it's going to at least bring down a Doom, and make things better for Falconfar.'
'And if we find such a chance?' Juskra howled, through her tears.
'Then, sister, we'll rush to die with you,' the oldest of the four Aumrarr promised grimly, purple-black hair billowing in a sudden side-gust. 'None of us live forever, but like everyone who thinks about such things, I want to die knowing my death achieved something.'
'And in the meantime,' Dauntra said grimly, her words sounding almost foul when set against her young and striking beauty, 'I'm going to slay every Dark Helm and every lorn I can catch alone. Every last one.'
Off to their right, in the direction the Dark Helms were running to, there were sudden shouts, and the ring and clang of swords meeting shields and armor and other swords rose to a deafening din.
More Dark Helms rushed past. Taeauna turned and whispered fiercely to Rod, 'Lord, stay here.'
Then she was out into the passage, sliding the panel almost closed behind her, and gone, darting to the left. Rod stepped forward to stand right where she'd been, nose near the narrow gap so he could look out. Taeauna was down at the corner the Dark Helms had been rounding, presumably on their way up from deeper levels of the cellars. Her shoulder was to the wall, she was crouching, and her sword was out and ready.
More Dark Helms burst around the corner; Taeauna gutted the last one with a perfect thrust through the side-seam of his armor plate, where a row of descending buckles under his arm attached the back to the front.
The other Dark Helms whirled in surprise, stumbling over their own haste. Taeauna slashed open the throat of the nearest one while he was still turning; he fell into the one beside him, slamming the man helplessly into the wall. Taeauna carved a new smile across his eyes before he could move, took out his throat on her return slash, and whirled back to face the corner, just in time to meet the next trio of racing Dark Helms.
They saw the sprawled bodies, and stumbled and swayed trying not to trip over them; Taeauna's blade was in the neck of the nearest one before he even saw her. The other two hacked at her, off-balance and wading in ankle-deep dead warriors, and she managed to batter one's blade aside and bury her sword in his face because his visor was still half-up.
The other one sprang over bodies to reach the wall right beside Taeauna, and swung his sword viciously.
She thrust herself against him like a lover, belly to belly, to get inside the reach of his sword, hooking her leg behind his. When he tried to pull back so as to sword her properly, he crashed over backwards and she pounced, stabbing ruthlessly.
Which meant she was down on hands and knees, with her back to the next Dark Helms, as they came rushing around the corner and started falling over bodies and cursing and reeling aside.
Taeauna was turning, but there were four swords reaching for her this time, too many for her to ever hope to turn aside. No! Rod Everlar thrust the panel open and burst out into the passage, the heavy laedlen dragging him wildly off-balance at his first step into a helpless sideways stagger that ended in him tripping on a downed Dark Helm and toppling onto that body, hard and ingloriously.
Yet Dark Helms had turned at his arrival, blades swinging around to him, and that had given the Aumrarr all the chance she needed. Black blades were already clattering to the floor as Taeauna darted here and there like some sort of Olympic fencer trying to out-dance an acrobat, and by the time Rod had heaved himself upright again, two throat-slit Dark Helms were falling dead at his feet.
His stomach heaved, and he promptly emptied it, all over them.
Taeauna reached out a long arm as the last Dark Helm she'd been fighting fell over backwards, throat fountaining, and dragged Rod over now-heaped bodies to stand with her against the wall.
She gave him a disgusted look, wrinkling her nose at the smell of his sickness. 'The hidden passage where I told you to stay,' she said pointedly, gesturing with a sword dark and dripping with fresh blood, 'would have been safer. And less upsetting.'
'And if something happened to you?' Rod panted, as the Deldragon battle far down the hall rose to fresh heights of frantic hacking and screaming. 'I'd be alone, and doomed, and utterly lost. 'Welcome to Falconfar,' indeed.'
Taeauna shrugged. 'Yes, lord; welcome to Falconfar. Just the way you wrote about it.'
'It is not! I never wrote about Dark Helms! They're Holdoncorp's invention!'
'Well,
