Arch Wizard

on a fur-draped couch.

'The former rulers of all humankind?' Juskra teased. 'Masters of all magic, who chose to be beautiful battlemaids with wings?'

'Those truths, yes,' Dauntra said quellingly. 'Let's not wag our tongues now about your interesting fancies about Aumrarr having a deep, driving need to bed all wingless men who don't flee fast enough, hmm?'

'Agreed,' Ambrelle said sternly, tossing her head so her almost-ankle-length hair swirled around her in a flood of purple-black glossiness. 'Sisters, it's high time we were gone from Galath's coils. We've tarried here to steer nobles for as much time as we dare spare on men who love fighting too much to stop. Brorsavar's rule and eventual triumph is as secure as anything in this benighted realm can ever be, and more important fights await.'

'Horgul's self-styled Liberators, you mean,' Lorlarra said quietly.

The eldest of the four Aumrarr nodded and pointed across the room at the open window. 'Let's fly. They'll be back through that door as soon as they find courage enough.'

'Reinforcements enough,' Juskra corrected, taking wing for the window.

Ambrelle merely nodded, as they left that keep behind and soared.

Only two arrows sped after them, and both were woefully late and low. As usual.

in one of the scryings, a castle suddenly exploded.

Narmarkoun turned and strode over to the floating scene, to watch the great cloud of flames and stone and upflung dust rise to its full height, rocking the land all around… and then, slowly, begin to rain down. Impressive.

The undead women responded to his keen interest, entwining themselves around him and caressing with renewed vigor and purpose.

'I had no idea anyone in Galath had dragged a wizard that powerful into things,' he remarked. 'I don't think Malraun-or Lorontar, come to that-could have caused that without my knowing… hmmm…'

Watching the wet, torn remnants of several hundred knights and armsmen patter down all over a Galathan valley, he shrugged.

'Well, it happened. In Galath, which for now is just one great brawl among the steel-heads.' He turned away.

'I have the Tesmers to see to,' he told his caressers, striding toward the distant doorway that led to his favorite spellcasting chamber as fast as his purposeful walk could drag their limp bodies.

Halfway there, he stopped so abruptly that two of the undead women clinging to him fell over. 'How long has Lorontar been watching my mind-riding spellwork, I wonder?'

Neither the animated dead nor the walls around offered any reply.

Garfist stared out the window, across the endless treetops of the Raurklor. 'So is this Horgul a Stormar, then? I always wondered when the dusky-faces would stop fighting each other and scheming how to daily do each other out of coins long enough to reach out and conquer us all.'

'No, you always wondered why they hadn't already, and what was keeping them from getting around to it,' Isk corrected. 'Making one of the big mistakes, Gar. Believing everything you think is right, and if everyone just came to their senses they'd all end up thinking just like you.'

The big man opened his mouth, an eager growl of irritation rising to his lips… but no words came to him.

After standing with his jaws open for a little while, gaping like a fish, Garfist closed them again. Then he coughed, regained his mournful look, and rumbled, 'I hate it when you change the whole world for me, Vipersides. You always make it more complicated. Things used to be far more simple. Eat, sleep, rut, kill someone, take his things, get drunk, then do it all over again. I didn't have to think, then.'

'And there are empires full of men like you,' Iskarra said wearily. 'Bloody map-filling empires.'

'Is this another of your notions, Jusk? Or one of your rants coming on?' Dauntra asked impishly.

Juskra's reply was a wordless, menacing snarl. Dauntra's beauty, set against her own sword-scars, always aroused her ire anyway, and the most alluring of her four sworn sisters loved to tease.

When the veteran warrior did speak, it was to Lorlarra and Ambrelle, her head pointedly turned away from the most beautiful of the four Aumrarr.

'I know this Horgul is now of paramount importance, and Ironthorn, too. Our spells tell us, our dreams tell us… yet I don't know why. Is this a Doom using sly spells to lure us, again? Or are there truly gods, or Falconfar itself, speaking to us-to all Falconaar creatures-deciding what will be the latest focus, the trendiest battlefield?'

Ambrelle smiled a little sadly. 'Sages, elder Aumrarr, and even kings-'

'Even dimwitted kings,' Lorlarra murmured.

'— have pondered what you're now voicing, over and over again, as the unrolling ages have passed.'

'That's nice,' Juskra replied caustically. 'Have any of them concluded anything?'

'No,' Dauntra put in brightly.

Ambrelle shot her a hard look. 'Of course they have. Yet their various conclusions seem of no use to others at all. Nothing we-or anyone-can predict, or influence, or quell.'

Far below the four, Sardray unfolded, vast and nigh empty; endless gently rolling rises-ripples in the land too gentle to be called hills-of waving grass.

'I think there is a Doom behind this,' Dauntra said unexpectedly, waving one slender hand down at the grassland below. 'I can't see a greedy warlord-no, I know nothing of this Horgul that the rest of you haven't heard, but any greedy warlord-passing up the chance to ride like a storm wind through all this empty country, to plunge into the Raurklor the easy way, along the roads, to conquer this hold and then that hold, instead of struggling up through the trees from the Stormar cities. Unless someone or something is riding his mind, and forcing him to come through the forest.' She stared into the thoughtful gazes of her sisters and added, 'I just can't see a bold conqueror sort resisting the way of easy haste.'

'Unless he fears Sardray for some reason,' Juskra said thoughtfully, eyeing her usual rival with something akin to respect. 'Otherwise, I'd have to agree with you: some spell or other is guiding him. And the only wizards with power enough to do that are either riding with him-'

'And probably bedding him every night, so as to swamp his reasoning with love or at least burning lust,' Lorlarra murmured.

'— or they're Dooms. And we've not heard of Horgul having any such.'

'No.' Dauntra's headshake was emphatic. 'I've heard he hates and fears spellhurlers, and has even hedge-wizards and altar-priests put to death when he finds them. With him it's the sword, the blood-drenched sword, and the ever thirstier sword!'

'Charming,' Ambrelle commented. 'Another butcher. Why are they always butchers?'

'Those who aren't, don't get as far,' Juskra told the wind. 'And we hear less of them, and don't go flying across half Falconfar to fight them. When he was one Stormar swording others through the farms of the Yulmeads, we cared not. When he first set boot out of the Stormar lands and hewed his way through the Raurklor to take Blacktrees, we lofted eyebrows. When he took Dawnarrows, we started to take interest in him as more than a mere curiosity. Now that he's lording it in Hawksyl, and on, bound for Darswords without delay, we're seeing Dooms and crying great change for Falconfar!'

'Well,' Dauntra said impishly, eyeing her sisters, 'I was getting bored with Galath.'

Chapter Five

Rod blinked, and came to a sudden halt.