Arch Wizard

So sudden that he almost lost his footing, landed on his rear, and started a bruising, bouncing slide down the steep bank.

Almost. Instead, when he started to slip, he launched himself into a frantic gallop to keep from falling-and ended up half-stumbling, half-sprinting down the bank in a wild, undignified race. It ended when he fetched up in a scrabbling-to-stop crouch atop a handy protruding boulder, where he could rise unsteadily to stand half-blinded in the bright late sun of the day, and look all around.

The endless forest he'd been trudging through had ended quite suddenly-if temporarily, for he could see its familiar dark green gloom on the horizon ahead, along the heights that rose on the far side of the vale-in a great open valley that stretched to Rod's left and right as far as he could see.

It was a valley of farms, small and odd-shaped fields bounded by untidy hedgerows. Along its winding slopes snaked many lanes, little woodlots were everywhere, and a river glimmered down at its heart. Far off to his left, where the valley widened, he could see the mouths of what must be side-valleys, carrying sun-sparkling streams down to join the river. That must be a fair-sized bridge, yonder, and-

'Hold, outlander! Keep your hands away from your weapons!'

The voice was cold, and close by, and it rang with the iron of authority.

Rod froze, then shivered, swallowed, and managed to turn his head. To look straight down into the hard, unfriendly eyes of a man in chainmail, a helm, and a leather jerkin that had large armor plates sewn onto it.

There was a younger, but just as unfriendly-looking guard off to one side, and that one had a long, slightly curving sword in his hand. Both of them had bright red diamonds painted on their breastplates, and those diamonds bore a painted iron gauntlet, each. Left-handed, vertical, thumb and fingers open and to the top.

Gage on a scarlet field. Hammerhand, in Ironthorn. He'd found Ironthorn.

And Ironthorn had found him.

As the flickering glows of his spell died away, the darkly handsome man stepped forward to loom over the table. 'So,' he asked the woman on it gently, 'do you know who I am?'

The woman strapped to the table looked up at him with an eager, almost shy smile, the fires of his last spell still flickering across her eyeballs. 'M-master,' she murmured. 'You are my lord and master.'

The man smiled down at her. 'And my name is?'

'Malraun,' she whispered in awe and longing, as if he was a god.

'Yes, Taeauna,' he said fondly. 'Will you obey me, Taeauna?'

'Obey you and serve you,' she said fervently, her eyes dark with longing. 'Yield to you.'

The handsome man's smile broadened, and he started undoing the straps that bound her ankles and hips.

'We won't be needing these, then.'

Sardray unfolded below them, vast and empty, dark ripples in the grass marking the passage of hurrying breezes.

Used to such winds but not wanting to feel the colder bite of arrows, the four Aumrarr were flying high, up where the air was chill and thin.

'Now that Horgul's taken Hawksyl, the next hold is Darswords-and it stands in the shadow of Yintaerghast,' Lorlarra said quietly. 'Castle of the not-nearly-dead-enough Lorontar.'

Juskra nodded. 'And the hold after that is Harlhoh, and that means Malraun. Are you saying he'll never reach Ironthorn? Or that it can't be Malraun who's goading him?'

Lorlarra shrugged. 'We can't tell that until we see what he does after Darswords. If he goes right past Harlhoh, following the eastern edge of the Raurklor around Sardray, he'll-'

'Come to upland Tauren. Where no one goes at all except to reach Ironthorn,' Juskra put in. 'So do we go back to Ironthorn ourselves, now?'

Dauntra shrugged. 'The Dooms know Ironthorn's going to be important just as well as we do. Perhaps better; they might know why.'

'Well, I'm not flying up to one to ask him,' Ambrelle said firmly. 'We dare not try to do much of anything in Ironthorn yet-show our faces there, least of all-but must be there and ready to pounce, once the Dooms are busily fighting each other up and down Thorn Vale.'

'They will be,' Lorlarra agreed.

There was a general sigh of agreement.

'Oh, yes,' Juskra murmured, 'they will.'

They flew on in thoughtful silence for several wingbeats before Dauntra turned to look at her sisters. 'Burnt Bones is the first hold west of Ironthorn, on the Long Trail. Should we fly there?'

Ambrelle shrugged. 'We penned our two old rabbits up in Stormcrag; we may as well go there ourselves. It's a long way from here to Burnt Bones.'

'Not if you use the old spell-gate,' Juskra said quietly.

The other three Aumrarr all turned in the air to look hard at her.

'What 'old spell-gate'?' Ambrelle asked sharply. 'As in Osturr and the Three Maidens? You're not starting to believe fireside tales, now?'

'No,' Juskra said calmly. 'Falconfar hasn't yet spawned a fighting hero as strong or perfect or unflaggingly virile as bright and smiling Osturr. The tale is pure fire-fancy.'

She gave her winged sisters a dark smile. 'The gate, however, is quite real. Have you never wondered why the Gold Duke-and why does just one coin grasping, Galathan- noble-hating merchant of Tauren style himself 'Duke,' anyway? — guards his family crypt with more coinsworn blades than stand watch over his treasury?'

'I always thought it was because he kept his real treasury in the caskets,' Dauntra admitted. 'You're saying the crypt holds a spell-gate between Tauren and Burnt Bones?'

Juskra's smile never wavered. 'I am.'

Lorlarra frowned. 'And you want us to wing our ways right through all the Gold Duke's guards-and their venom-tipped crossbow bolts-because of this wild hunch of yours?'

'No hunch. I've walked the gate.'

Three eyebrows lifted in unison.

'You must tell us about that, some day,' Ambrelle said softly. 'For now, though, you're suggesting we take this gate from the heart of Tauren to Burnt Bones? With all too many forest outlaws and hedge-wizards mind- thralled by Malraun the Matchless, or serving him out of well-founded fear?'

'Sisters,' Lorlarra said quickly, 'I don't think we dare try to use it.'

Dauntra nodded. 'If the Dooms all know about it, we'd be flying to our deaths.'

Juskra nodded. 'I'd say they can't not know about it.'

'Then we use it not,' Ambrelle decreed. 'And we turn north, now, sisters, to reach Taurentar Wood. We can sleep there and go on to Ironthorn on the morrow. Waiting in the Raurklor until dusk, and only then darting straight to Stormcrag.'

'Where we'll hope one of the Dooms hasn't installed a garrison before us,' Lorlarra said darkly.

'What? Are you tired of fighting lurching dead men in armor, or flying toads?' Juskra teased.

'No,' the quietest of the four sisters replied grimly, 'but I'm thinking we all soon will be. Very soon.'

As Rod stood and stared at them, both of the Ironthorn guards started moving, striding well out to either side of his boulder before slowly advancing on him. They both had their swords out now.

Rod glanced at one menacing face, then at the other.

'This is Ironthorn?' he asked the older guard, trying to make his voice sound calm and casual. He backed off the boulder as he spoke, turned, and started up the steep slope again, fumbling with his gauntlets.

Earlier, tramping through the forest, he'd taken them off and threaded the spiral rings adorning their cuffs through some of the metal loops his belt was studded with, to leave them hanging at his thighs. Now, of course, unthreading the rings wasn't going smoothly.

'I gave you an order, outlander!' the older guard said harshly, sounding very close.

Rod remembered that the closest part of the man would be his sharp swordtip-and then, thank God, he got that left gauntlet unhooked, pulled it on, and wheeled around.

'So you did,' he replied sternly, 'and I thought it rather a rude way of greeting someone who has aided the