Arch Wizard

disapproving finger. 'Who are you, and how do you know Lord Hammerhand? Tell us-and reach for no weapon, or Lord's friend or not, you'll taste steel before you can do aught else!'

Rod halted, managed a smile he hoped didn't look too sickly, and spread his empty hands wide. 'I… Burrim Hammerhand is still Lord of Ironthorn, right?'

'He is,' the older guard snapped. 'And I am Briszyk, yon blade is Urlaun, and you are who, I ask again, outlander?'

Rod drew in a deep breath, and replied unhappily, 'My name is Rod Everlar. If you have heard of me at all, you probably know me as the Lord Archwizard of Falconfar.'

Their eyes blazed, and they lifted their swords grimly, just the way he'd expected.

Rod sighed, and wondered how it would feel to be sliced apart.

Dyune of the Aumrarr turned to see what was coming at her-a wooden chair that fell far short, bouncing and sliding harmlessly-and beheld a second chair, and a third, all slid across the room with all the force the skeletally-thin woman could muster.

Not at her, but to where the shaggy man she was pursuing could easily sidestep and snatch them up.

He hurled the first at her high and hard, and it came crashing down on her swordarm, head, and shoulder from above, bruisingly.

Dyune snarled out her rage and flung it aside, launching herself into a fresh charge that brought her racing, face-first, right into the second chair.

That stung, dazing her and forcing brief weeping, and she hacked empty air blindly and wildly to keep him at bay as she hastily blinked away the tears that were blurring her vision.

Something large and dark came swinging at her, and she got her sword up only just in time. The blade bit deep into the wooden seat of this latest chair, and almost got snatched out of her hand as the man wielding it twisted it away.

'Keep 'em coming, Isk!' he bellowed. 'I think she likes 'em!'

Off-balance and straining to keep hold of her sword, Dyune couldn't stop the response: a chair that came hurtling at her from behind, crashing down around her head and dashing her to the floor.

She lost her dagger somewhere in that bouncing, breath-snatching landing, and ended up rolling clumsily, trying grimly to keep hold of her sword as the shaggy man kept planting himself above her and hammering her with his chair, beating her about the head and shoulders, and kicking at her sword to try to knock it out of her hand whenever he dared risk his balance.

In the end, she let it go and instead whirled toward him, ramming herself against his legs. He toppled over her with a great crash, like a stone wall falling over, and she rose groggily to retrieve her sword and put it through him.

Only to hear the thin woman shrieking her way nearer. Fast.

The Aumrarr fought her clambering way over the fallen man-who kicked and punched her with a fine disregard for her sex-to try to pluck up her sword before that deafening banshee reached her. Thinbritches would have a knife or three, she was sure, and-

The man's boots caught her ankle in a scissors-grip. She toppled helplessly, slamming to the floor with force enough to drive all her wind out of her, leaving her unable to even sob in pain as her slashed left side erupted in fresh fire.

So she writhed in silent, gasping agony, insistently forcing herself to roll toward her fallen sword, and expecting the cold kiss of a dagger across her throat at any instant.

Thuddings shaking the floor right behind Dyune told her the man was rolling, too, keeping close behind her.

One of his hands-as large and hairy as a bear's paw-clawed at her hip, slowing and twisting her as she strained her way onward. She wasn't more than the length of her hand away from the hilt of her blade, now-

Thinbritches fell on her, hard, screaming and stabbing wildly, rolling over her and off. The thin woman must have slipped in her sprinting haste, or tripped over the man, to tumble so rather than pouncing, and-

Dyune's fingers closed on her sword.

Spinning around on her hip, she swung it in a great slash, slicing deep into the man crawling behind her, whose great body took it solidly. He grunted, sounding more surprised than pained as his blood sprayed.

The Aumrarr kept right on spinning, cutting thin air-and then the ribs of the lunging, energetically- clambering woman, who was already clawing for her with that dagger.

Thinbritches made a sound that was half-sob and half-shriek, and collapsed, more blood spurting.

The sword had slid along the woman's ribs, glancing off rather than plunging in, so she might not be hurt all that badly, but Dyune didn't plan to give these two intruders time to wallow in pain.

They were going to die, and die now, before she collapsed and ran out of time to reach the healing.

Clenching her teeth against the agony tearing at her left side, she struggled to rise from her hip to her knees, to crawl to… to…

She fell back, heavily, a flood of tears blinding her. The fire all down her left side was spreading, and she was melting into it…

She heard her sword clatter on the floor; it sounded as if it was far away, though it must be right beside her. She could no longer feel her fingers, and was somehow on her back and staring up at the ceiling. There was a groaning, that might have been rising from inside her, except that it was deep and rough, and snarled out curses that were new to her.

She turned her head, but instead of her chair-tormentor, saw Thinbritches, lying gasping on the floor beside her in the wet center of a slowly-spreading pool of blood. The woman was staring back at Dyune with a doomed look, like a caged boar that knows its time on the spit will come soon.

That deep groaning came again, and Dyune turned her head the other way.

There was the shaggy man, sprawled on his back on her other flank, in the heart of his pool of spreading blood.

So behold, she thought wryly, the Fallen Three. Our battle done, as we lie together, slowly dying from our wounds, too wounded to fight on. This isn't how things went, in all the ballads.

Chapter Seven

Rod Everlar shook his head. 'No. Briszyk and Urlaun, don't make the mistake of killing me. You'll be dooming yourselves, and all of Ironthorn, too.'

Briszyk's eyes narrowed, and he stopped advancing and flung out his free hand in a 'stay your blade' signal to the younger guard.

'His death will trigger spells,' he said warningly to Urlaun. 'We must torture him-breaking fingers is best- and force him to quell them, before we cut off his head and burn it. One can't be too careful, when slaying wizards.'

'Perhaps not,' Rod snapped, trying not to tremble too much. 'But I'm not a wizard. I'm the Archwizard. And I haven't blasted either of you, have I?'

Urlaun sneered. 'You can't. Your spells are gone. We can see that.'

'So I'm no threat. Yet you rush to slay me?'

Briszyk shrugged. 'One less wizard to worry about.'

Rod sighed, drew in a deep breath, and started to stroll among the trees, clasping his hands behind his back and doing his trembling damnedest to seem unconcerned.

'Sure you can kill me,' he told the Hammerhand guards. 'But you'll destroy all of Ironthorn-all Falconfar-if you do. Not just topple a lord or a castle, but wipe away everything. You, your parents, your friends, children-everything. I'm the Lord Archwizard. All life in the