crown.'
In reply, the oldest Aumrarr smiled and held up the sack in her fist, purple-black hair streaming out behind her as she flew.
Then her face changed to its usual severe expression, and she pointed down with her other hand at the swiftly climbing lorn. 'Sisters mine, we have visitors.'
'Six-and-twenty,' young and beautiful Dauntra called, having just finished counting them. 'Let us see what they decide to do if we ignore them, and just fly on.'
Lorlarra nodded. 'Well said,' she called back. The ongoing disintegration of her armor had left her almost bare, but trailing a tangle of dark straps and armor plates.
So the four Aumrarr did just that, turning not a handspan aside from their chosen path. The lorn circled uncertainly in front of them, trying to catch their eyes.
All four Aumrarr met their gazes, gave them polite, pleasant smiles, and flew straight on.
The lorn traded puzzled frowns with each other, flapped hastily aside to meet and confer in harsh whispers, and then turned to look again at the four Aumrarr, now past them and streaking steadily away across the sky, as straight as four speeding arrows.
The winged women did not look back.
After several brief and uncertain hissed exchanges that decided nothing, the lorn dropped away, seeking their forest perches again.
The door blew inward, shards and dust swirling and bouncing in the short passage that led to his main scrying-room.
'Amalrys?' Arlaghaun spat out her name, his thin lips even tighter than usual, letting her hear all of his anger in that icy query, letting his magic carry his quiet voice the length of the ruined hall.
There came no answer. But then, he hadn't intended to wait for one.
His many shieldings-even the strongest one, that could hold up Ult Tower if it was hurled down on his head-were up and flaring in front of him as he strode down the hall, brown eyes afire and sharp nose twitching, his hands flexing in his hunger to throttle his disloyal apprentice.
He stopped dead. Many of the scrying-crystals had shattered, their magic now but sparkling dust and ash on the floor, and draped across the frame that held the surviving stones, smoke smudged around her gaping mouth and empty eyesockets, her bare body covered with ash, lay Amalrys.
She was very still. The Doom of Galath stared hard at her for a long moment, and then peered swiftly all around the room. Then he sent forth his shieldings in a questing cloud.
There were no sudden flarings to mark lingering spell-traps on her or between him and where she lay; Arlaghaun strode to her and took her in his arms.
She was lighter than he remembered. Chains chimed softly as limp limbs sagged; her body was cold.
Arlaghaun held her across one arm, as if she weighed nothing, and with his other hand stroked her honey- blonde hair. His thin lips quivered, just once, but his burning eyes remained dry and hard.
Taking her by the chin and turning the ruin of her face away, the Doom of Galath idly entertained thoughts of making love to what was left of his Amalrys one last time.
She was beautiful still, but where would the thrill of surrender come from? His memories would outshine all, and they would serve him until he captured someone better. And that would be soon.
He let her body fall and turned away, somewhat wearily telling the still air around him, 'Behold. Arlaghaun is master in his own castle again.'
The still air declined to answer, of course.
Arlaghaun walked back down the passage, dismissing for now thoughts of just how many guardians he'd had to blast and maim to make that claim, and put his hand on a particular stone.
It glowed obediently, and took him in an instant to another room, where a blank, solid wall stood in front of his nose.
'One more thing to do before I compel Klammert,' he murmured. 'Somehow, there's always one more thing to do.'
Arlaghaun thrust a hand at the wall, and it melted away at his touch; he stepped through the wall as if it wasn't there, into a large hall choked with the broken, heaped bodies of guardians.
Picking his way around them, he reached the mirror and slid it back into place, to once more conceal the passage that led to his escape gate.
Scenes were moving in the mirror. Folding his arms across his chest, Arlaghaun stepped back to watch.
The load of stone plunged down out of the sky and slammed into the mud like a giant's fist, bursting apart in all directions. Hurtling stones sent men and horses screaming alike as they were tumbled, crushed by thudding stones, and then buried.
'Glorking Deldragon!' Baron Chainamund snarled through his bristling straw-yellow mustache, retreating hastily for all his great bulk. 'Where's he getting all this stone from?'
'The houses of Bowrock that we're smashing down with our catapults, Chainamund,' Klarl Snowlance replied wearily, in his reedy voice. 'Ondurs, could you judge just where that was fired from?'
Marquel Mountblade was busy wiping dust from his everpresent monocle; he paused just long enough to shake his head. 'Somewhere near the northeast tower,' he replied sourly. 'Which is about as much as we already knew. We're going to be here a long time, lords.'
'Right,' Arduke Stormserpent said briskly, a rare smile on his usually stern, dark face. 'I'll have my playpretties brought in by coach, then. And the uppermost racks of my wine cellar.'
Those words brought Velduke Brorsavar's head around, huge in its gleaming helm. Thankfully, it, too, was wearing a smile. 'Will you be sharing, Laskrar?'
'But of course, lord. For the greater glory of Galath,' Stormserpent replied with a low, sweeping bow.
'Ah, now, that's the best news I've heard these last five days!' Arduke Windtalon put in, turning from the maps of Bowrock he'd been peering at. He'd used his helm to hold one corner of their curling edges down, freeing his shoulder-length mane of copper-colored hair. There was a certain eagerness in his almond-hued eyes. 'As Mountblade says, these fortress walls aren't going away anytime soon.'
Several of the Lords of Galath tried to peer up through all the drifting smoke, past the chaos of dead horses and heaped rubble and tents, at the battlements looming somewhere near, but the smoke was too heavy, just now, to see anything properly.
Arduke Lionhelm stiffened, and pointed right up into the sky overhead. His handsome, hawk-eyed face wore a look of astonishment. 'Look! Aumrarr! '
'Aumrarr? Here?'
'They're either spying, or running missives for Deldragon,' Baron Chainamund snarled, sweat running down his florid face. 'Shoot them down!'
Smoke promptly hid the winged women from view, even as a bowman came crashing through the rubble, calling, 'Lord? Your will?'
'Ignore him,' Velduke Brorsavar snapped, his gleaming-armored shoulders as broad as the two nobles standing beside him put together, 'and get back to your post. Shoot at nothing until I give such an order, or Velduke Bloodhunt, yonder, does.'
'Aye,' Arduke Lionhelm agreed. 'Barons tend to slay too swiftly, and then storm about raging that they can't question corpses, after.'
'Lords,' the bowman said gravely, bowing low. Then he rose, turned, and fled back through the rubble even as Chainamund roared, 'How dare you, Lionhelm?'
'Very easily,' the arduke replied with a shrug, his hawk-eyes hard. 'I grow weary of foolishness, Chainamund. Dispense with it, and we'll get along fine. Spew more of it, and I'll begin to consider how well Galath will get along with one less blustering idiot of a baron in it.'
The florid baron's mustache quivered, like a bush disturbed by men fighting in it, and his face went from angry red to roiling purple. 'Veldukes,' he yelped, 'd-did you hear that? Did you?'
The broad shoulders of Velduke Brorsavar turned, a mountain of metal moving, and their owner said coldly, 'I certainly did, Glusk Chainamund. And your blusterings, too. I have time for neither. Still your tongue, or I'll find myself agreeing with Lionhelm.'
